KAOA 1972: The legalities involved

In Karnataka, particularly in the urban regions,apartment buyers have been scrambling for owner’s registration for quite sometime now. On account of this, purchasing an independent house has become a daunting task. In a move to bring to pass transparency in transferability of immovable property and help apartment buyers actually own a dwelling, the state government has introduced Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act (KAOA) 1972.

Previously, a number of owner’s association registration has been done under the Karnataka Societies Act, as per market reports.However, as per legal advisors, it is not the right law to register an apartment association. The Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act (KAOA), although has wheels within wheels and includes a number of legalities, is the correct law for owner’s association registration.

DOD-Its essence

According to the KAOA Act, a promoter, builder or owner of an apartment is required to execute a document, commonly stated as the DOD (Deed of Declaration). The document, in its entirety, gives a full description of the property in question, coupled with complete information of all the apartments and other amenities. Together with DoD, bye-laws of the association of owners and copies of the plan approvals are also registered.

When a particular apartment owner attempts to register their Deed of Apartments to complete their sale, it must constitute data regarding its registration, date of the registration and the registration number, as per the KAOA act. This will enable the ownership scheme to become easily traceable and clear the title.

The act is relevant to only residential buildings

KAOA deals particularly with apartments with residential value. The housing apartments are eyed as heritable and transferable properties under the act. It is a mandate for the apartment owners to sign all the particulars, in order to register an apartment complex under the KAOA act.

In addition to the registration, all the additional details related to the apartment must be filed along with the registration of a building’s declaration. Such details must be inclusive of location, building’s name, layout and the approx number of apartments. Furthermore, the dimension of the apartment must be provided to complete the registration process without any legal obstruction.