The State government will give a makeover to its portal for registration of rental agreements between landlords and tenants (www.tenancy.tn.gov.in) this week.
The Housing and Urban Development Department will start training programmes for rent authorities on Tuesday. “The rent authorities in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur will get training in the first phase on Tuesday,” said an official. Owing to glitches in the system reported in the past few weeks, the government is also planning to extend the time for registration of the rental agreements. The tenants and landlords were expected to register rental agreements within 90 days of notification of the rules. As the number of registrations was very low, the government has taken measures to solve the problems.
“Most of the landlords and tenants we get an opportunity to talk to say they have not registered their rental agreements. Many of them are also not aware of the new statutory provisions. This Act will benefit both the landlord and the tenant,” said P.S.J. Palani Rajan, president of the Greater Chennai Corporation Licensed Surveyors Association.
“We are fixing the issues. The portal will be ready in two or three days. We may extend the time,” said a senior official of the Housing and Urban Development Department. The compilation of data on registration has also been incomplete in many areas. A number of landlords and tenants have also reported that they were unable to register the agreement.
“We are getting a large number of queries. But the actual registration is less,” said an official.
Following the notification of rules of the Tamil Nadu Regulation of Rights and Responsibilities of Landlords and Tenants Act 2017, the government developed the portal and announced that it would generate tenancy registration numbers for each agreement between a landlord and tenant.
Collectors in districts such as Chennai have already constituted the rent authorities in each taluk. But the manpower has been inadequate to process the applications. Even after the inauguration of the portal (www.tenancy.tn.gov.in) by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, the districts are yet to get manpower for registration of agreements. Rent authorities in Chennai and its suburbs were expected to register at least 10 lakh tenancy agreements. But most of the tenants and landlords in the city are yet to register the tenancy agreement, according to officials. The government departments and districts have also not been able to compile the correct data on registration of rental agreements. Chennai, which has 49% of its residents in renal accommodation, is expected to have the largest number of registrations after the makeover.