Single card to determine property ownership in city

After a delay of almost six years, the Revenue Department has started creating and maintaining Urban Property Ownership Records (UPOR) in Bengaluru. It is obtaining details of all private properties from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

The UPOR will give the dimension, floor dimension, floor plan, etc, of a building/site. Cards containing these details will be given to all property owners, according to Munish Modgil, Commissioner, Survey, Settlement and Land Records.

The UPOR will help buyers understand the exact dimension of a property and what are they paying for. In the long run, the UPOR will help avoid disputes over property ownership.

The UPOR was first mooted during the BJP government and was to be introduced in Shivamogga, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad, Ballari and Bengaluru on a pilot basis. But the system faced opposition from real estate developers as well as politicians. The department put off the launch and went on to implement it only in Shivamogga in 2016. Now, the UPOR has replaced municipality records as the go-to property database in that city.

Modgil said revenue officials would measure each property after obtaining the data from the BBMP.

"Right now, there is no standard definition or dimension of carpet area, built-up area, super built-up area and other terms. Each builder or government agency has their own scale of measurement," he said. "The UPOR will bring a uniform scale and definition to these terms, giving buyers a clear picture. The idea is to bring transparency and authenticity in property registration."

The UPOR will give a clear picture of how much was sold by the builder, how much stands on the ground and how much has been occupied. Additionally, the department hopes the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera) will help enforce these definitions. It is also seeking legal opinion to make things clearer as builders have now come up with terms like the legal built-up area and the sold built-up area.

For Bengaluru, the department is creating an in-house software to assess the property data. Eventually, the UPOR will make the BBMP khatas obsolete.