Gujarat Assembly passes amendment bill on transfer fees collected by housing societies

Gandhinagar: An amendment bill empowering the Gujarat government to prescribe rules for fixation of transfer fee collected by cooperative housing societies from a person who buys a house from an existing owner was passed unanimously in the Assembly on Thursday.

Through an amendment, the BJP government inserted a new section in the Gujarat Co-operative Societies Act, 1961, which says 'a co-operative housing society or a cooperative housing service society shall not collect transfer fee more than the transfer fee as may be prescribed'.

Tabling the Gujarat Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2024, Minister of State for Cooperation Jagdish Vishwakarma said the present Act does not have any specific provision about the transfer fee collected by societies from the new owner of a residential unit.

"Every year, 1,500 new housing societies are registered under this Act. In the absence of a provision, the management of a society collects transfer fees from the new owner as per their discretion. The transfer fee at times goes up to several lakh rupees and the society forces the new owner to pay it," he said in the House.

"That is why we are inserting a new provision which will empower the government to frame specific rules for the fixation of transfer fee. Once this amended Act comes into force, the chairman or secretary of a society will not be able to collect transfer fees in an arbitrary manner," he added.

Vishwakarma said the Bill also proposes that instead of minimum 10 members required in the present Act, a co-operative housing society can now be registered with eight members.

This change is necessary to bring parity with the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, which mandates that registration under RERA is compulsory if a housing project has eight or more units, he pointed out.

The House also passed a bill to convert Gandhinagar-based Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology into a full-fledged university offering courses and research opportunities across multiple disciplines, including management, law and design.

The institute, established through an Act in 2003 and popularly known as DAIICT, will be known as Dhirubhai Ambani University, said Minister of State for Education Praful Pansheriya.

The Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (Amendment) Bill 2024 was passed unanimously with the support of opposition Congress and Aam Aadmi Party.

The two opposition parties urged the government to implement 33 per cent reservation for the SCs, STs, OBCs and financially weaker sections in all courses to be offered by the university.