Introduction:
Land is a unique asset because it is immovable; its value depends on its location; and with the growing population, its demand keeps increasing, while its supply is limited. Access to land (or land rights) has a wide-ranging impact on livelihoods and industrial, economic, and social growth. People with land rights are found to be better off than the landless, due to better access to markets and other economic opportunities that come with such rights. Land ownership is broadly determined by access to a land title, a document that states such ownership. Having a clear land title protects the rights of the title-holder against other claims made by anyone else to the property. In India, land ownership is determined through various records such as registered sale deeds, property tax documents, and government survey records.
Land or property registration refers to the registration of the document, changes in ownership, and other transactions involving immovable property. Whenever you purchase an immovable property or a residential land/plot, it is imperative to get it registered with the concerned authority to ensure legal ownership and a title is guaranteed. This helps in reducing the risks related to frauds and assists in solving disputes with ease, in addition to the creation and maintenance of an up-to-date public record. The land registration process is handled by the authorities of each state. Every state has its property registration authority which has its requirement regarding the supporting, forms and registration charges. However, the land registration process in the country is more or less the same.
Section 17 of the Registration Act of 1908 provides for the documents for which registration is compulsory.[1] As per the section all transactions that involve the sale of an immovable property for a value exceeding Rs 100, should be registered. This effectively means that all the transactions of sale of immovable property have to be registered, as no immovable property can be purchased for merely Rs 100. Additionally, all transactions of gift of immovable property, as well as lease for a period exceeding 12 months, are also mandatorily required to be registered. In special cases, when a party to the transaction cannot come to the sub-registrar’s office, the sub-registrar may depute any of its officers to accept the documents for registration, at the residence of such person. The term ‘immovable property’ includes land, buildings, and any rights attached to these properties.
Looking back at the history, land titles in India are unclear due to various reasons such as legacy issues from the zamindari system (Prior to independence, the land was mostly concentrated with zamindars, who had permanent property rights. They collected land rent from farmers in a given territory and paid a fixed sum as land revenue to the government. This land revenue formed a key source of government income. However, the rent that was to be paid by the farmers was unregulated, and was subject to the discretion of the zamindars), gaps in the legal framework, and poor administration of land records. Such unclear land records have led to legal disputes related to land ownership and affected the agriculture and real estate sectors.
Currently, many legislations govern land ownership. The Transfer of Property Act, 1882 provides that the right (or title) to an immovable property (or land) can be transferred or sold only by a registered document. Such documents are registered under the Registration Act, 1908. Therefore, in India, the registration of land or property refers to the registration of the transaction (or sale deed), and not the land title (Ministry of Rural Development, 2008). A registered sale deed is not a government guarantee of land ownership. This implies that even bonafide property transactions may not always guarantee ownership as an earlier transfer of the property could be challenged. During such transactions, the onus of checking past ownership records of a property is on the buyer and not the registrar.
Importance of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and their application to autonomous systems (AS) have emerged as one such megatrend that is expected to have a wide-ranging influence on human society going forward. AI and AS have been very much in the news lately. Recent advances in AI applications, such as self-driving cars, smart personal assistants, image/video understanding, and game-playing, have captured the public’s imagination and the interests of governments, industries, and militaries across the world.[2]
The AI has sufficient capacity to change decision-making processes substantially, as well as to increase the overall efficiency of real estate operations. This s possible because artificial intelligence in real estate generates additional knowledge from the recognition of patterns, an area that few common real estate agents have access to.
There are several categories of artificial intelligence tools that can be useful in the real estate market, from task automation to independent decision making. The first level refers to routine tasks as the allocation of neighborhoods according to coordinates or directions. The following is the so-called support intelligence, to support processes run by humans, to make them more efficient in time and precise. This can help, respectively, expand the knowledge directly related to the quality of the decision made. Here we can talk about tasks such as the evaluation of price fluctuations, the probability that an apartment or premises stay in the market for more or less time, or the identification of suitable investments. The last level that of autonomous intelligence does not require human intervention. This is the territory of the chatbots and automated customer service tools.[3]
Real Estate valuation is based on different categories such as location, budget, type, accessibility, and more accurate details of the properties. The process involves a substantial amount of data collection and evaluation. With the implementation of vast amounts of data, the application of AI has changed the face of property valuation, making the process easier, faster, and more accurate. Many sectors have interested in incorporating this technology to their advantage while deciding about the present and future of their investments.
AI technology is helping the Commercial Real Estate industry to provide clear, quick, and precise information to its investors and customers. The exact data regarding return on investments (ROI) as well as price fluctuations expected in a location are the main factors that can help improve cost efficiency and speed up the execution of transactions.
With the AI application in real estate, updating of property valuation in a single portfolio takes a few minutes. This has led to a dynamic to improve the management system. The AI tool was promoting satisfaction and trust to customers and succeeded in connecting the gap between customer needs and requirements.
Although it is still a developing trend, several pioneering companies are already working on adapting artificial intelligence to the real estate sector. The technology is already used successfully in different formats, from recommendation engines integrated into web pages, to support systems for venture capital investors when identifying assets to be added to their portfolios. The development of customer service solutions is also experiencing a boom, with the growing implantation and sophistication of chatbots.
Although it has come to a realization that AI can be impactful in the areas of property management and real-estate it has not been explored deeply to be used. One of the main challenges faced in the land registering process is the poor maintenance of documents and their storage and updation. Land records consist of various types of information (such as property details, spatial details, past transactions, mortgage details) and are maintained across different departments at the district or village level.
These departments work in silos, and the data across departments is not updated properly or in a timely manner (Ministry of Rural Development, 2008). Hence, discrepancies are often noted in land records. For example, a property transaction registered through a sale deed may not be simultaneously updated in the survey department that records spatial information (maps). In the past, surveys to update land records have not been undertaken or completed, and maps have not been used to establish actual property boundaries on the ground. Therefore, in several records, the property documents do not match the position on the ground.
Poor land records also affect future property transactions. It becomes difficult and cumbersome to access land records when data is spread across departments and has not been updated. One has to go back several years of documents, including manual records, to find any ownership claims on a piece of property. Such a process is inefficient and causes delays.[4]
Another challenge is that AI-based applications to date have been driven largely by the private sector and have been focused primarily on consumer goods. The emergent scale and implications of the technology make it imperative for policymakers in government to take notice.[5]
India must view machine intelligence as a critical element of its national security strategy. At a time when AI is being viewed as a key component of foreign policy between the United States and Japan, with similar proposals of treatment being floated in India, the Indian government must formulate a national strategy on emerging technology trends with long-term strategic consequences.[6]
Conclusion
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fast developing and its application can be used to great advantages both economically and as well as for governance. As mentioned above, the introduction of AI can bring large changes in the land registration process, documentation, and further storage which has proved to be one of the biggest challenges in property registration. machine intelligence-powered platforms can become a strategic instrument of governance in India across a wide range of public services. These platforms are not without their challenges: a machine intelligence-powered approach to governance will require robust digital privacy laws and a code of ethics on limits to using AI. However, the range of AI’s possibilities is so vast that the full spectrum of its opportunities is difficult to fully comprehend.
References:
[1] The Registration Act 1908 s.17.b (Ind) “other non-testamentary instruments which purport or operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of the value of one hundred rupees and upwards, to or in immovable property;”.
[2] Lau, C., & Haugh, B. (2018). (Rep.). Institute for Defense Analyses. doi:10.2307/resrep22645.
[3] Importance of AI in property management and valuation. (2019, July 13). #1 Real Estate Directory Portal, News, Advisor in Hyderabad. https://propertyadviser.in/news/real-estate/importance-of-artificial-intelligence-in-property-management-and-valuation-549.
[4] India, I. F. (n.d.). Ideas For India. https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/macroeconomics/land-records-and-titles-in-india.html#.
[5] Vempati, S. (2016). (Rep.). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep12855.
[6] James Schoff, “The Japan-U.S. Alliance and Robotics Diplomacy,” Japan Times, March 17, 2016, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/03/17/commentary/ japan-commentary/japan-u-s-alliance-robotics-diplomacy/#.V0s8NPkrLrd; and C. Raja Mohan, “Raja-Mandala: India, US and Artificial Intelligence,” Indian Express, April 12, 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/raja-mandalaindia-us-and-artificial-intelligence/.
0 Comments