SANGUEM: To provide transparency in the registration of property documents and support ‘anywhere access to data’, the Registration Department, has commenced online registration of property documents at the Sub-Registrar Offices in Goa.

Though the system of compulsory online registration of documents is yet to be followed at the Sub-Registrar offices of Salcete and Mapusa, which have heavy load of registrations, the Sub-Registrar offices with lesser work load have commenced with the registration of sale deeds, gifts deeds and other property documents online.

The offices of Sub-Registrar at Sanguem and Quepem have already stopped issuing walk-in appointments for registration of property documents but instead the citizens and advocates are directed to take appointments for registration of documents, online.

Incidentally, with the process of online registration being new, those seeking appointments online are facing initial hiccups in getting appointments as the process is not understood well both by the clients or those providing the services.

A fortnight has passed that the online registration system has been implemented; however, the office of the Sub-Registrar at Sanguem is yet to register a document via the new online system. 

On the other hand, the Quepem taluka office has reportedly registered two documents, but the parties had to spend almost a day in getting the document registered as there were several queries which could be answered only by the agency personnel which developed the software.

Under the new procedure, citizens and advocates intending to get the document registered have to register themselves online under the head ‘citizen registration’. 

Once done with the personal registration, the citizen has to upload the document in PDF format on the online portal using the username and password following which the citizen is allocated a pre-registration number for want of approval from the Office of Sub-Registrar concerned, where the document is to be registered.

The Sub-Registrar will then verify the document and if everything if found to be in order, then, the citizen is directed to go ahead with the payment of the registration and other charges and schedule a date for execution of the document.

On the appointed day, the parties have to go to the Sub-Registrar office concerned and complete the remaining part of the registration formalities. 

As per the procedure, the executants are also required to take two witnesses at the time of final registration of documents as the photographs of the witnesses and their thumb impressions are taken for completion of registration formalities.