Common Questions,
Clear Answers.

No. Tarte Consultants does not charge a consultation fee. Walk in or call to discuss your requirement without obligation. Charges for the actual assignment, and the Government charges that apply to it, are advised once we have assessed the matter and established what it requires.

Begin with a call, a WhatsApp message, or an enquiry. For the first review we prefer that you bring the papers to our Dombivli Head Office, where the matter and document requirements can be assessed directly. Documents may also be shared by WhatsApp or email, or sent by courier where that is more practical. The enquiry form itself does not take attachments — send it, and we will tell you what to send and how.

An initial meeting at our Dombivli Head Office is preferred so the instrument and document requirements can be assessed directly. Much of the review, drafting, coordination and follow-up can then continue remotely. Where the applicable route requires personal appearance, the required persons attend physically. Ordinary property registration requires the executants to attend the Government registration office having jurisdiction, while leave and license follows its own e-registration process. Individual services carry their own exceptions: a power of attorney can be executed from outside India, and arrangements can be made where a testator is unable to travel to register a Will.

The office is open Monday to Saturday. Registration assistance is available from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Two Sub-Registrar offices are located in the immediate vicinity of our Head Office, which is what makes that extended window workable. Walk-ins are welcome; for complex matters an advance appointment is recommended.

No. There is no single checklist that applies to every registrable instrument. A sale, a gift, a release, a partition and a lease are charged and treated differently from one another and do not share one document set. We identify the instrument first; the documents, the duty and who must attend all follow from that. Identification requirements at the registration counter are a matter of current office practice, which we confirm for the office where your document will be presented.

To begin work we ordinarily need identity particulars of every party who will execute or admit execution; the prior title documents and the chain you hold; the property description exactly as it appears in the registered and revenue records; the agreed consideration and how it is being paid; the possession position and any occupancy or tenancy affecting the property; and any loan, charge or encumbrance recorded against it. We use this to identify the instrument and compute the duty. The set that ultimately has to be produced is settled once the instrument is identified. See Property Registration.

We start from the terms rather than from a form: parties, premises, term, licence fee and any escalation, security deposit, lock-in, notice, who bears the outgoings, and the condition in which the premises are handed over and to be returned. Alongside that we ordinarily ask for identity particulars of both parties, proof of the property and of the licensor’s title to it, photographs, and the society’s no-objection where the building requires one. This reflects what a matter usually needs rather than a fixed statutory list — the exact requirement depends on the premises, the parties and the registration route, and we confirm it for your agreement. See Leave & License Agreements.

In practice: proof of identity (PAN card, Aadhaar card or Election card), passport-size photographs, proof of residence, identity documents of the attesting witnesses, and a medical certificate as to the testator’s condition. This is what we ask for in practice, not a statutory checklist. The legal requirement under Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 is attestation by two or more witnesses. A medical certificate is not required for validity, but where capacity might later be questioned — because of advanced age or recent illness — contemporaneous medical evidence is a sensible precaution. Identification requirements differ between offices.

Duty is charged on the instrument, not on the transaction in the abstract. The first question is which article of the Schedule to the Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958 the instrument falls under — a conveyance, a gift, a lease, a leave and license agreement and a power of attorney are charged on different bases. For a conveyance, duty is charged by reference to the consideration set out in the instrument or the true market value, whichever is higher. The Annual Statement of Rates, universally called the Ready Reckoner, is the official valuation framework for assessing true market value; it operates as a minimum reference rather than as the answer on its own. What is actually payable also turns on the precise location, any additional local body duty, cess or surcharge, the category of purchaser, and any concession in force on your date of execution. A percentage quoted in the abstract is the start of a calculation, not its result. See the stamp duty guide.

Most property instruments in Maharashtra are stamped through the Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS), which produces an electronic challan, with an e-SBTR obtainable from a designated bank as proof of duty paid. Physical stamp paper is available on-site from our licensed Stamp Vendor. Franking through authorised centres is also arranged. We handle whichever route applies to your instrument, so you do not need to deal with a separate vendor or navigate the Government portal yourself. See Stamp Duty & Adjudication.

No. Duty must be paid before or at the time of execution. A document executed first and stamped afterwards attracts consequences under the Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958, and an instrument that is not duly stamped has problems as evidence. Under-stamping tends to be discovered at the worst moment — when the document is needed for a loan, a sale or a proceeding — and is then corrected with duty plus penalty rather than duty alone.

No. They are levied under two different statutes and computed on different bases, and a document handling charge applies on registration in addition to both. A budget that treats them as a single blended percentage is usually wrong in one direction or the other. We set out the Government charges applicable to your instrument separately from our own charges, so it is clear which is which.

Where the correct duty on an instrument is genuinely uncertain, Section 31 of the Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958 allows the duty to be determined by the Collector rather than guessed at. We assess the instrument, prepare and file the application with its supporting documentation, appear through the proceeding, and obtain the order — a formal determination that can be relied on. It is not needed for every transaction. It is worth considering where the amount at stake justifies the time, or where a later dispute about under-stamping would be expensive; for a straightforward flat purchase where the position is clear, it is unnecessary.

Because of the deposit. Under Article 36A of the Schedule to the Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958, for an agreement of a term not exceeding sixty months duty is charged at 0.25% of a statutory total: the licence fees or rent payable, plus any non-refundable deposit, advance or premium, plus interest calculated at 10% per annum on the refundable security deposit or refundable advance. The refundable deposit is not itself added to the base — only that notional interest on it is — which is why a modest rent combined with a large refundable deposit produces a figure well above what the rent alone would suggest. It is the component parties most often miss.

For registration handled at a Government registration office, the executants attend in person. Signing the document and admitting its execution before the registering officer are two different acts, and the second has to happen at the office. We also recommend keeping witnesses available on the day: identity at the counter is ordinarily verified through Aadhaar, and where that verification is unsuccessful, or the office requires it, witness attendance becomes necessary. That contingency is a separate question from any attesting-witness requirement the particular instrument carries in its own right — a Will, for example, requires two or more attesting witnesses under Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 whether or not it is ever registered.

For registration handled at a Government registration office, yes: the executants attend physically, their photograph and biometrics are captured at the office, and identity is verified through Aadhaar. Leave and license agreements are handled through the Department of Registration and Stamps’ official e-registration system, currently in its Leave and License 2.0 form, where parties and witnesses are authenticated by Aadhaar-based biometric verification. Identity verification is operated by the Government system, so the practice at the counter is theirs rather than ours; we confirm the current position for the office where your document will be presented.

Yes, but only if the power of attorney says so in terms. An attorney has the powers the instrument confers, construed strictly. Authority to sign a document is not automatically authority to admit its execution before the Sub-Registrar, which is a distinct act and has to be enumerated. Blanket language such as authority to do all acts necessary is not a substitute for enumeration, and a representative turned away at the counter is most often turned away for exactly this reason. The power must also be correctly stamped for what it in fact does, and registered or authenticated in the manner its intended use requires. See the power of attorney guide.

For registered matters we provide the registered set together with a photocopy. The registered set includes the applicable stamp duty challan or receipt, the registration receipt, and Index II — the official record of the registered document’s particulars, and what a purchaser, a lender or an authority will later examine. A scanned PDF can be provided on request. The documents are collected from our Dombivli Head Office. For a leave and license agreement, the registered agreement is provided to both parties. We do not publish a completion date: the registration office’s own processing is not within our control.

No. Registration puts the document on the public record; it does not cure the title. A registered instrument does not convert a defective title into a sound one. Where the chain of documents raises a question, that question is worth examining before the transaction rather than after it — which is what title and document due diligence is for.

The preventable causes are settled before the day: the instrument is not duly stamped, or duty was not paid within the period allowed after a foreign instrument was received in India; a representative’s power of attorney does not enumerate the act being attempted; a party’s identification particulars do not match the documents produced; the property is described too loosely; or the power relied on has expired by its own terms. Beyond those, the parts of the process operated by Government systems — the registration office’s own procedure, Aadhaar identity verification at the counter, appointment availability, and the time an authority takes over an application — are not within our control, and we do not promise a date for them. What we can do is deal with the preventable objections before the appointment rather than at the counter.

No. Notarisation and registration are different legal acts. A Notary may attest, verify, authenticate or certify a document within the notarial function. Registration records an instrument with the registering authority where registration is required or chosen. Notarisation does not replace registration where the law requires it, and registration does not cure an independent defect in the document or transaction. If you are unsure whether your document requires registration, see our Property Registration service.

No. Our work is non-litigation: property documentation, registration, stamp duty, conveyancing and related consulting, together with representation before the registration and stamp authorities where a matter is decided there. Where a matter has to be carried forward as court proceedings — a suit under Section 77 of the Registration Act, 1908, for example — separate court representation is required.

No, and the belief that it does is the commonest misconception about Wills. Registration is optional, and an unregistered Will is not invalid for that reason. What registration does is create an official dated record that the document was presented before a public officer, which can be a relevant circumstance if the Will is later disputed. It is not proof of validity: if challenged, the person propounding the Will must still prove due execution and attestation under Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, which requires two or more attesting witnesses — not four. Where a testator chooses to register and is unwell or unable to travel, arrangements can be made so that they need not attend the office in the ordinary way. See the Will registration guide.

The power is executed in the country you are in and then has to be made usable here. Broadly that means execution before the appropriate authority there — typically an Indian consular officer, or a local notary with authentication under the arrangements applicable to that country — followed by the steps required on receipt in India, which can include stamping within the period allowed after it is first received here. The requirements differ by country of execution and by intended use, and they do change, so we confirm the current requirement before execution rather than after the document has travelled.

No. Registration under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 brings the society into existence as a body that can hold property, open an account in its own name and contract — but it does not by itself transfer the land and the building to it. That transfer is the conveyance, and it is a separate instrument executed in favour of the society. A great many societies in Maharashtra are properly registered and still hold no title to the land beneath them. Where the promoter does not execute the conveyance, the statutory remedy is deemed conveyance.

Not yet. Under Section 11(4) of the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act, 1963 the Competent Authority issues a certificate that it is a fit case for enforcing unilateral execution of the conveyance. That certificate is a direction to the registration machinery; it is not itself the conveyance. Title moves when the unilateral instrument is registered under Section 11(5), and the property and revenue records are then updated to show the society as holder. The six-month period in Section 11(4) governs the authority stage ending with the certificate — preparing the instrument, stamping it, registration and mutation each take their own time afterwards, and that period is not an end-to-end guarantee. See how a society obtains title.

The procedure comes from directions issued by the State Government under Section 79A of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 — currently the Government Resolution dated 4 July 2019, issued in supersession of the Resolution of 3 January 2009. They set the thresholds societies most often ask about: a requisition by not less than one-fifth of the members to initiate; a quorum of two-thirds of the total membership at the special general body meeting; and approval of the redevelopment and of the developer by not less than 51% of the total membership. These should be read with any later applicable directions and with the society’s own legal position. The decision itself belongs to the members — the Registrar’s role under the co-operative framework is supervisory and procedural, not an endorsement of the commercial terms.

There are three routes, not two, and they carry different requirements. If you are already married by ceremony and want the marriage recorded in the ordinary way, that is registration before the Registrar under the Maharashtra framework — Section 8 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 providing for registration where the marriage was solemnised by Hindu rites — and there is no public notice period on this route. If you are not yet married and are marrying civilly or across faiths, that is solemnisation under Chapter II of the Special Marriage Act, 1954, which carries the notice and objection procedure the well-known thirty-day period comes from. If you are already married by ceremony but want the marriage registered under the Special Marriage Act itself, that is Chapter III, which has its own notice and objection procedure and brings the marriage under that Act. Documents, forms and fees differ between the three and are set by the applicable rules and current office practice, so we confirm the requirement for your circumstances. See which route applies to you.

Registration under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 is generally required unless the project falls within an exemption under Section 3(2). Under Section 3(2)(a), registration is not required where the land proposed to be developed does not exceed 500 sq.m. or the number of apartments proposed to be developed does not exceed eight, inclusive of all phases. Under that threshold test registration is generally required where both limits are exceeded, subject to the other statutory exemptions. Where a project is registered, the registered particulars should be consistent with what purchasers and members are actually promised — an inconsistency is a warning sign that surfaces during due diligence. See the MahaRERA verification guide.