Pakistan Property News > Fears Mount Over Checks On Sindh Real Estate Deals
KARACHI, June 24: The Sindh government decision to ban purchase and rental of real estate without verification of credentials of buyers or tenants by the National Database Registration Authority and police registration has caused concern among property dealers and people who fear it could open another channel for the law-enforcers to receive inducements.
While the authorities rejected certain issues being raised by the property dealers, saying that such thoughts were based on mere confusion, and called a meeting of property dealers on Saturday, no immediate solution has been provided yet to remove fears among buyers and tenants.
Sharing their concerns with Dawn, many people believed that generally citizens avoided visiting police even if they were robbed or victimised. In this situation, they said, making the police’s role mandatory in the real estate deals would not only cause inconvenience to people but would also provide another opportunity to the law-enforcers to exploit the fresh regulations to their advantage.
The authorities said that a meeting of all senior police officials had been called on Monday to keep a check on the process and avoid public inconvenience as well as trend of corruption.
“A meeting between the home department high-ups and the police hierarchy, including the DIGs of all the three zones (south, east and west) of the city, will help define parameters of the police role by ensuring transparency in the entire process,” said Sharfuddin Memon, adviser to the Sindh home ministry.
“Implementation of the rules is definitely an issue and we will also consider the concerns of people while dealing with police in this regard.
However, we have put several checks and will invite people to lodge complaints with the home department complaint cell or approach the DIG office concerned if they face any inconvenience, non-cooperation or any kind of harassment from the police.”
In a fresh move, the Sindh home department asked every individual or group buying or renting out a property to get registered with the area police and their credentials must be verified through Nadra. The department officials defined the new rules aimed at registration of tenants and people buying properties mainly in mainstream urban areas for security reasons.
However, the initiative raised
several questions from the real estate dealers and Karachiites about the mechanism to implement the ‘tight rules’ that involved several institutions in some ‘very personal affairs’.
Financial matters
“We are meeting the home department officials on Saturday to know the pros and cons of the entire rules,” said Raja Mazhar, a senior office-bearer of the Clifton Defence Property Dealers Association that represented some 800 real estate agents.
“If the rules demand buyers or purchasers to declare the amount of the deals, it would definitely not be acceptable to any dealer and people engaged in the deals. Otherwise we are ready to follow the verification and registration process.”
The adviser to the home ministry confirmed to Dawn that the new rules did not seek details of transactions or amount of deals as they sought three key facts that were seen essential in recent security environment.
“We need history of tenancy of the person who plans to get some place on rent. Secondly, there is a police clearance for the criminal record of the buyers or tenants and finally they should have Nadra-verified documents to get registered with the area police,” he said.
He said it would be a tough job to keep checks on all such deals but it should be seen as an initiative that would return good results in the long run.
