Panaji: ‘Mhajo Flat’, a scheme announced in the state budget, will be rolled out within 15 days, chief minister Pramod Sawant said on Thursday. It aims to resolve a long-standing legal tangle that has left between 30,000 and 40,000 flat owners across Goa unable to register their properties in their own names.Sawant said that thousands of flat buyers, despite having purchased their homes decades ago, have no formal ownership on record. In several cases, the land on which residential complexes stand continues to be in the name of the original landowner, who is either no longer alive or in Goa to sign transfer documents.“There are cases where even old buildings of 40 years still have the land in the name of the original owner, who is not there to sign the documents today. The builder has also moved to Mumbai. But the flat owner is waiting — two of his generations have lived in the flat — but he cannot do anything,” Sawant said. “This needs to be resolved so that the flat can be in the person’s name.”According to the scheme, the registrar will sign the deemed conveyance on behalf of the landowner or builder and hand over flat ownership rights to the purchaser.At present, even after a customer has paid the total amount to the builder for the purchase of a flat, the buyer often remains stuck between the owner of the land and the builder. There was usually an agreement of sale between the flat purchaser and the builder. However, to date, many flat owners have not received ownership rights, nor have builders formed societies to transfer the rights to flat owners.To provide them with these rights, govt has announced the Mhajo Flat scheme and will implement the deemed conveyance scheme.The announcement came at the inauguration of the new head office of the registrar of cooperative societies, Sahakar Seva Bhavan, at Merces. Sawant said it will take approximately a month for the office to shift completely from its current rented premises at the Goa State Cooperative Bank building to the restored structure at Merces.The newly acquired building offers around 870sqm of built-up space across two storeys, restored by the PWD at a cost of approximately Rs 2.4 crore.Goa has approximately 5,600 cooperative societies, of which around 3,000 are housing cooperative societies, and 1,450 are self-help groups.Sawant said the cooperative policy must become more transparent, and that Goa has the potential to be number one in the country’s cooperative sector.
The announcement came at the inauguration of the new head office of the registrar of cooperative societies, Sahakar Seva Bhavan, at Merces
