Madras High Court ruling goes in favour of realtors
Power agent can sell even after owner’s death
By : j. stalin
Update: 2014-08-17 06:28 GMT
Chennai: The Madras high court has upheld the contention of property developers that they would face serious problems and huge losses through the implementation of an impractical executive order from the inspector general of registration (IGR).
The order said for registering the sale of a property through power of attorney, it is necessary to produce the ‘life certificate’ attested by the doctor of the owner for his power of attorney to be valid at the time of registration.
The IGR order of February 2013 had also limited the life of the ‘life certificate’ to just one month. Justice S. Vaidyanathan agreed that this requirement would put property developers at a huge disadvantage as they would have run to their property owners every month for getting the ‘life certificate’ and subject themselves to fresh demands for more money from the owner.
Allowing the petition from the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI) Tamil Nadu, the judge set aside the IGR circular. The judge said the deed of power of attorney plays a vital role in the field of real estate transactions, without which realtors, builders and flat promoters cannot develop properties.
The power of attorney coupled with valuable consideration cannot be revoked even in the event of the death of the principal while the property is in the process of being developed and the power agent was entitled to proceed with the transaction.
“After development of the property, the power agent cannot find buyers at one time within one month to sell the flats, in order to register the sale deeds. Therefore, there is no justification to insist upon production of ‘life certificate’ for every spell of one month and if the agent approaches the owner for such certificate, there is every likelihood of the latter demanding money or the principal riding over the agent,” the judge added.