March 4, 2024: The Gujarat Assembly on February 29, 2024, passed an amendment Bill empowering the government to chalk out rules for fixing transfer fees collected by cooperative housing societies from a buyer buying the property from an existing owner.
According to the present Act, there is no provision on how much transfer fee be collected by co-operative societies from the new owner of a residential property. With this amendment, a new section was inserted in the Gujarat Co-operative Societies Act, 1961, which points out that a co-operative housing society or a cooperative housing service society cannot collect transfer fees more than what is prescribed.
According to media reports, Jagdish Vishwakarma, minister of cooperation for state, said, “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. With this amendment, the chairman or secretary of a society will not be able to collect transfer fees in an arbitrary manner.”
Media reports suggested that Vishwakarma mentioned that the Bill also proposed that instead of minimum 10 members, a co-operative housing society can be registered with eight members. This will be in line with the RERA Act, which mentions that RERA registration is necessary for all projects that have eight or more units.
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With 16+ years of experience in various sectors, of which more than ten years in real estate, Anuradha Ramamirtham excels in tracking property trends and simplifying housing-related topics such as Rera, housing lottery, etc. Her diverse background includes roles at Times Property, Tech Target India, Indiantelevision.com and ITNation. Anuradha holds a PG Diploma degree in Journalism from KC College and has done BSc (IT) from SIES. In her leisure time, she enjoys singing and travelling.
Email: anuradha.ramamirtham@housing.com