PUNE: Homebuyers investing in old properties are forced to postpone registration as the state’s much-vaunted online search facility to verify titles has hit a crippling technical snag.
The title search is the first line of check, especially for old properties, with complex genealogies or family history. “The service are affected time and again because of which it gets difficult for people to download the property data. While registration department officials have put up messages stating that they are updating the software, they should do so on weekends and not on weekdays when the rush of homebuyers is high,” Sachin Shingavi, president of the Association of Real Estate Agents, Maharashtra, said.
When contacted, the property registration department confirmed that there had been technical glitches in the software. “The problem is primarily pertaining to the cloud services. Our teams are working on resolving the issues. The service is expected to be restored soon,” an official said.
Almost 4 crore documents are uploaded on the cloud by the registration department. On an average, more than 1,000 title search requests are sent to the registration department data centre every day.“Without the e-search facility, how are we to confirm the authenticity of property ownership. We have been forced to postpone registrations amid all this confusion,” a Baner resident looking to register an old property said.
Registration department officials blamed the mega cloud server hosting a staggering 4 crore land and property documents for the problem. “It’s a temporary glitch in the cloud services, which our IT teams are working on to resolve immediately. The service will be up and running soon,” an officer said.
As harried citizens contend with endless delays and adjournments for want of verified titles, the registration department data centre is besieged by over 1,000 daily requests for e-searches, an official said. “The online title search is mandatory before any deal can be cleared these days. This disruption will spawn massive queues and bottlenecks. This should be looked into immediately and the authorities should also work on averting such issues in the future,” a broker said.
Advocate Kailash Thorat said the system should have been streamlined by the department by now. “These intermittent glitches only amount to harassment of citizens, who have been forced to postpone the registration owing to the problem in the online title search facility,” Thorat said.
The department sees registration of both new and old properties. For old properties, e-search facility is vital and it is only after the title history is available that the people are allowed to go-ahead with the registration. The facility helps prevent frauds of multiple transactions though they might be happening in a short period of time.
