Society Services

Deemed Conveyance

A great many housing societies in Maharashtra occupy their buildings, collect maintenance and function in every visible way as the owners of their property, while holding no title to the land beneath them. The conveyance was never executed. Deemed conveyance is the statutory answer to that situation, and it does not require the promoter to cooperate.

Tarte Consultants has completed over 250 deemed conveyance matters. We handle the entitlement assessment, the file, the proceeding before the Competent Authority, and the registration and record updation that follow — because the order alone does not complete the transfer.

Send an Enquiry — No Fee +91 98213 13285

Who this is for

When you need this service

Your society holds no conveyance of the land it occupies
The promoter has dissolved, died, moved on, or simply will not execute
Redevelopment is being considered and the society cannot demonstrate title
A member or a lender has questioned the society's title position during a flat transaction
The society obtained an order years ago and never registered the instrument

Our assistance

What we handle

Entitlement assessment

The useful first step is not an application. It is an honest assessment of what the society actually holds — whether the society is properly registered and its record is in order, whether the individual flat agreements are available and registered, what the property and revenue records currently show, and what is known about the promoter. That assessment determines whether the matter is straightforward or whether there is a title question to resolve first.

Assembling the file

Applications succeed or fail on documentation. The society is asking an authority to certify a transfer that the person who should have executed it did not execute, so the file has to establish the chain independently. We assemble the society registration record, the individual member agreements and their registration particulars, the approved plans and approvals, the property and revenue records, and the material showing the promoter was called upon to convey.

The application to the Competent Authority

Preparation and filing of the application under the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act, 1963, which places an obligation on the promoter to convey title to the organisation of flat purchasers and provides the route where the promoter does not.

The proceeding

The proceeding is adversarial in form. Notice goes to the promoter and to others with a recorded interest, and they may appear and contest. We appear through the hearings. A society that has assembled a complete and internally consistent file is in a very different position from one reconstructing its papers during the hearing.

The unilateral instrument, stamping and registration

Preparation of the unilateral instrument of conveyance, its stamping and adjudication where applicable, and its presentation to the registering officer with the certificate. Title moves on that registration.

Post-registration record updation

Mutation and updating of the property and revenue records to show the society. When the society later comes to redevelop, it is the registered instrument and the updated records that will be examined.

How it works

The statutory route

It is worth being precise about what the Competent Authority actually issues, because this is widely misdescribed.

Assessment and file preparation
The society's position is assessed and the documentary chain assembled before anything is filed.
Application to the Competent Authority
The society applies where the promoter has not conveyed. Notice issues to the promoter and to others with a recorded interest.
Hearing
The application is heard and may be contested. The society proves its entitlement on the documents.
The Section 11(4) certificate
On being satisfied, the Competent Authority issues a certificate to the Sub-Registrar or other registering officer certifying that it is a fit case for enforcing unilateral execution of the conveyance. The certificate is a direction to the registration machinery — it is not itself the conveyance.
Unilateral instrument and registration — Section 11(5)
The applicant submits that certificate together with a unilateral instrument of conveyance to the registering officer, who follows the statutory process and may register the instrument as a deemed conveyance. Title moves on that registration, not on the certificate.
Records updated
The property and revenue records are then updated to show the society as holder.

Section 11(4) requires the Competent Authority, on receiving the application, to act within a reasonable time and in any case not later than six months. That period governs the authority stage — the stage ending with the certificate. It is not an end-to-end guarantee: preparing the unilateral instrument, stamping and adjudication where applicable, the registering officer's process, registration itself, and then mutation of the property and revenue records sit outside that period and take their own time.

Getting started

Documents the file generally rests on

A deemed conveyance file has to establish the chain independently of the promoter. The material we ordinarily work from includes:

7/12 Extract or Gaon Namuna No. 6
Plan Sanction Letter and N.A. Order
Society Registration Certificate
Completion Certificate
Property tax paid receipts
Architect NOC or certificate
Power of Attorney, where one exists in the chain
Original member list and conveyance chart
Registration receipts and Index II for the member agreements

Please note: This reflects the material a file usually rests on rather than a fixed statutory list. What a particular society needs depends on its own history, on what the promoter did and did not do, and on what the property and revenue records currently show. The assessment stage exists to establish that.

Worth knowing

What societies most often get wrong

The order is not the end

A certificate or order from the Competent Authority is not, by itself, the completed transfer — it is the instrument that enables the transfer to be effected. The deed has still to be stamped, presented for registration, and the records updated. A society that obtains an order and stops there has spent the effort and not secured the benefit.

It is not a cure for a defective title

Deemed conveyance is a distinct statutory remedy with its own conditions and its own evidentiary burden. It does not manufacture a better title than the members were entitled to receive. Where the underlying title itself is defective, that defect needs to be understood before an application is made.

Delay makes the file harder, not the problem larger

The argument for acting is not that something bad is imminent. It is that the evidence needed to prove entitlement gets harder to assemble with every passing year, as members sell, papers are lost and the promoter's trail goes colder.

Conveyance belongs at the start of a redevelopment conversation

A society that does not hold conveyance of its land is proposing to redevelop property it cannot demonstrate it owns, which affects structuring, financing and the developer's own approvals.

Read our detailed guide