AP Starts Auto Mutation of Properties System for Urban Areas

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh government has started implementation of the ‘Urban Auto-Mutation of Properties’ plan in 17 municipal corporations. This follows the completion of ‘Rural Auto-Mutation’ in non-urban areas in the state.

As part of the urban auto-mutation, those who intend to sell or buy or inherit or gift a property have to get it done through the registration department. The government data would thus get updated.

At the time of registration of property, a stamp duty of 5 per cent, a transfer duty of 1.5 per cent and a registration fee of 1 per cent, with a total of 7.5 per cent of the total value of the property is to be paid to the government.

With launch of the new system, a mutation fee is also to be paid along with the 7.5 per cent of the total value of property at the time of registration of the property itself. So, in no time, the property records in the municipal corporations would also be updated.

With this, apart from the registration document, the mutation certificate would also be issued with updated data on the ownership of the property.

However, the mutation fee would be decided by the respective municipal corporation by passing a resolution based on certain norms. This would be fixed on the basis of the total value of the property. It varies from one civic body to another.

The earlier practice was that once the change of ownership of property was registered with the registration department, those who got it done are supposed to take rounds of the municipal offices to get their records updated along with the change of ownership. This involved hardships and took time. They got this done mostly after payment of a bribe to concerned officials.

Though this new initiative started during the term of the YSR Congress government, its implementation gained pace under ‘Speed of Business’ under the present TD-led alliance government’s time.

However, to avail the facility of urban auto-mutation, there are prerequisites-- like there should be no ambiguity in the ownership of the property; and all the details of the property and its ownership should be registered, with latest changes, in the government records. Also, another stipulation is that there be no tax dues to the civic body.

An official from the registration department said, "After successful implementation of the rural auto-mutation of property in the villages, the government is taking this up in municipal corporations. There will be a lot of issues to be settled, like merger of neighbourhood villages, change of door numbers of properties, court cases etc, so that these would strengthen the system.”

Notably, the urban auto-mutation of property system was implemented in Vijayawada municipal corporation as a pilot project. Based on its feedback, the government has started to implement this in municipal corporations. Later, this would be extended to the municipalities.