[2017-06-21] Mint: Blockchain land records

[polynesia]

Blockchain land records

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/ZcXOLqUxkItMtdhIwJqkQM/Blockchain-land-records.html

Dealing in real estate in India is hard. According to the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business survey, India ranks 138th in the world in difficulty in registering property. But we don’t need an international survey to tell us this. As anyone who has transacted with property in India will testify, everything to do with transferring interest or title in real estate, be it something as simple as leasing a flat or as complex as developing a commercial project across multiple land parcels, is complicated and mired in intricacy and uncertainty.

Central to any real estate transactions is the question of title and unfortunately, it is still very hard to confirm whether a seller in India actually has title to the property he intends to sell. While the law requires transfers of title and interest in property to be registered, this only provides limited assurance as transfers can be assailed in many ways—from family members who claim title through inheritance to unknown third parties who try and assert their right to specific performance.

In India (as is true of most common law countries), ownership rights to property are proved through title deeds—a chain of documents that evidence the transfer of title from person to person over the years all the way to the current owners. The problem is that any one of these intermediate transactions is capable of being challenged under the principle of nemo dat quod non habet—one cannot give that which he does not own. If we are to introduce greater certainty into the real estate business, we must devise a mechanism by which transfers cannot be set aside.