Mortgage and receipt deeds turn tools for forging private land sales

Chennai: Be careful while you mortage property and get the documents back after paying up. Land sharks are running a scam using

mortgage

and receipt deeds. Sub registrar offices in Chennai are witnessing complaints of decade-old mortgage and receipt deed numbers figuring on fake sale deeds to usurp private land.

Registration department sources said that a complaint relating to registration of a vacant plot at Velacherry using the mortgaged deed document was received three months ago. According to official sources, a sale deed was forged for the four-ground plot and registered at Royapettah in 2009. “It was a classic case of mortgaged and receipt deed document numbers misused for registering fake sale deeds. The forgery has been reported to the Central Crime Branch police for further investigations recently after the original property owner made a complaint to the registration department,” an official said.

The scam involves miscreants in alleged connivance with a section of registration department officials to access the document number of mortgage and receipt deeds. “They choose 10-year-old document numbers because people who had registered mortgaged and receipt deeds do not verify it after transactions end. Against this backdrop, the mortgaged and receipt deeds are replaced with fake sale deeds of properties to commit the crime,” the official added.

Another case of forgery was reported at Anna Nagar sub-registrar office using the receipt deed of a property located at Thirumangalam in 2006. Subsequently, a fake sale deed was registered with the number of the receipt deed document for the sale of a property at Ayanavaram. Though the forgery was unearthed two years ago, registration department sources said that at least 12 such cases have been reported in areas falling under the jurisdiction of Anna Nagar and Virugambakkam sub-registrar offices in the past few months, sources said.

While the forgery was possible in registration department’s online registration software, an official said, it has been plugged in the updated version of the software launched last year.


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