Origin of Property Registration
Property registration is the process by which you register the documents related to a property of yours with legal entities. For instance, when you purchase a flat directly from a builder, property registration gives you the right to legally own, use or dispose of the property. When you have a legal ownership title over a property, there is a low likelihood of fraud or misappropriation.
Need for Property Registration
Property registration is required to maintain the ownership of land/property deeds. There are many reasons to get your property registered:
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Avoid conflicts: Proper property registration helps individuals avoid conflicts arising from land disputes.
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Maintain ownership: Property registration also helps to identify the rightful owner of a property.
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Comply with legal processes: Many legal processes require individuals to furnish proper land deeds and documentation.
These requirements make the property registration process an essential part of the legal and financial worlds. A traditional process for property registration already exists, but there are major challenges related to the process. Through this case study, we are going to assess and tackle the challenges of the traditional property registration process. But first, let us look at what the challenges are.
Problems/Challenges of Property Registration
- Property registration is a mere record of a sales transaction.
- There could be multiple parties claiming ownership of the same property.
- Although property ownership can be challenged in the court, the verification process is cumbersome and time-consuming.
- Ownership documents could be tampered with.
- Tampering of land deeds can lead to the wrong individuals acquiring ownership of properties for personal gain. This is a major issue in developing countries, and also creates a huge backlog of civil cases in courts.
- Benami registrations: This is a transaction in which a property is transferred to one person for the consideration paid by another person. This also leads to corruption and tax evasions.
Solution Using Blockchain
Blockchain is an immutable distributed ledger that is shared with everyone present on a network. Every participant interacts with the blockchain using a public-private cryptographic key combination. Moreover, the records stored on the blockchain are immutable, making them very hard to tamper with, thus providing better security. A solution like Hyperledger Fabric also offers the features to maintain users and roles, which additionally help secure and identify owners.
The government can utilise the feature set of a blockchain to reduce the difficulties faced in the traditional property registration process. A distributed ledger can be set up among the buyer, seller, bank, registration authority and notary. Property details can be stored in and accessed from the blockchain, and these details are immutable, meaning they cannot be altered by anybody.