Title Homeownership and Finance
February 10th, 2010
The economic reforms implemented by India for almost two decades has resulted in the growth of many areas that are essential to the country's financial system. Funding is an area that has experienced considerable growth in recent times and is considered to play an important role in growth and development.
Bank finance in the housing sector has completely changed the way real estate is bought and sold in the country. It has certainly helped the hitherto marginalized groups in society to access and fulfill the dreams of owning the property as a legal concept is as old as the beginning of the formation of social society between the human species. The desire to own something a person can own use and enjoy to the exclusion of all others has been a fundamental right recognized by all legal systems worldwide.
The formal sector housing mortgage finance continues to elude the lower income groups because of the unavailability of title, transaction costs and the difficulties in assessing the risk due to the behavior of irregular income.
Credit market is structured around the mortgages. Creation of security by way of deposit of title deeds is the most common method employed in the industry for its simplicity and cost. Mortgage deeds have consequences on the rights and therefore an avoidable option compared to the previous method. Such a fundamental problem of lack of title prevents higher penetration of credit activity in the market. It is not just affecting the housing loan business, but also have far reaching consequences. While courts have considered the legality of the creation of equitable mortgage by deposit of legal documents and ill, as the award letter, possession etc. However opinion is divided in various courts and the case is now under consideration by the Honorable Supreme Court.
Therefore, it is considered a critical need to clearly define the rights of people in tangible objects to ensure that people enjoy these rights without any confusion and exclusion of others. This results in a need to clearly define the legal title to the properties of individuals. Credit market growth in the housing sector largely depends on how quickly and efficient legal system can be developed to record and recognize the right of people in properties in the form of title deeds.
In India the title of the properties may be claimed by persons legally recognized in various media. The most common and effective legal claim to ownership of property is for possession of a sale of work on behalf of a legally executed document, however, even that is not free of the claims made by other competitors for the title.
Such competing claims arising from inefficient record-keeping system of land titles by the State controlled the land and performance records whose inefficiency and corruption have become an agenda. It is common to observe that even a duly registered act of sale is challenged by her lack of authenticity and legal competence to transmit clean titles. Such a problem is due to fragmented land records are not available in real time to other land records to avoid multiple registrations.Even the loop holes in registration laws are exploited by corrupt actors for multiple records on the same property to secure the registration of affected than where the building to avoid detection.
In Delhi, we saw many examples of properties in the sale of the facts have been recorded in Delhi Mumbai, taking advantage of a provision in the law that allows registration of land in Mumbai to record the properties located anywhere in India .
The inheritance laws in the country will allow family members to sue in competition with the ownership of a person who claims as his property, alleging that the ancestral property of nature which necessarily belongs to all members of the family and not just one.
Farms also have their own particular legal problems. The law recognizes property through possession and registration of rights cultivatory in legal filings. The property claimed on the basis of registration fees in a legal record and not on the basis of a document of title acts as an impediment in the housing market credit.
Credit help people to aspire beyond their existing resources by allowing them to take advantage of the loans and the lack of this service that the buyer is obliged to buy cheap and not so good options that are within its limited resources . These cheap options lead to unplanned development in the form of unauthorized developments and banks stay away from the properties in such areas due to lack of clear titles and construction as per the guidelines issued by Reserve Bank of India based on the ruling of the Delhi High Court.
Another problem currently facing the credit market to housing is the status of the state-owned land. Because socialist policies approved before the land always falls on the State, allowing his subjects to use the same as tenants. I mean the lease-hold land. Title never passed to the occupant or lessee. Even if the rules allow the transfer of title in favor of the tenant, the transfer is fraught with legal complications and is a costly affair. Banks are normally shy of financing transactions relating to properties leased out. Legal requirements creates legal complications and therefore acts as an impediment in the growth of housing credit market.
Unless we address and resolve the fundamental issue of ownership of the property by making laws that remove all the complications and the government strengthen foreclosure laws, land records, creating the environment for the creation of credit bureaus , mortgage insurance / etc guarantee company, it will be difficult for the housing credit market to reach all the cross sections of society particularly the weaker and disadvantaged section of society.