This Opinion involving due diligence of the land has been published with the consent of our client and names and identities have been concealed to respect their privacy.If you have a similar matter, please contact us first for legal advice by calling us at +92-300-5075993 or email us at [email protected]
We have been retained by our client to provide an opinion on whether due diligence can be conducted to establish a person’s land ownership in Pakistan. In this regard we have been provided with a series of documents to look into the matter, which are attached herein as appendixes A to S (omitted for confidentiality of the client) in the Opinion. Basing our investigation on these documents as well as our own thorough research in the matter we have been able to provide the following opinion.The observations of this opinion override any previous facts or points communicated at our end, as this is the final opinion. In answering ,these questions we are in receipt of the following documents :
- A Sale Deed, of Land Purchased by X (Appendix A):
- A Power of Attorney, by Mr. X to Mr. Y in English (Appendix B) and Urdu (Appendix C)
- Sale Deed by Mr X’s Attorney English (Appendix D) and Urdu (Appendix E)
- Affidavit of Mr. S (Appendix F) Inquiry Report by Tehsildar Islamabad in Urdu (Appendix G)
- Inquiry Report by Patwari XYZ Town Islamabad, in Urdu (Appendix H)
- Copy of Stamp Vendor Register From where Power of Attorney Stamp Paper was issued (Appendix I)
- Paper titled Record No. 112 (Appendix J) which is possibly an unofficial translation of Appendix (I) above Letter No XVYTZ 0 Dated XX Feb, 2014- 05-08 Appendix K
- Letter No. XYZ ated 28-01-2014 Appendix L
- Map of XYZ Town Islamabad Capital Territory Appendix
- Letterhead of XYZ Property Advisors Appendix N
- Copy of Patwari Register records Appendix O
- Copy of receipt of advance payment paid by Mr X Dated 09-04-2007 Appendix P
- Copy of XYZ Property Advisors Receipt containing account number of Mr P (Who sold land to Mr X appendix Q
- Copy of Receipt for advance payment by Mr X Dated 09-04-2007 Appendix R
- Copy of XYZ Town Brochure Appendix S
All of the above documentation has been used to investigate the matter of the present ownership of the property situated at Khewat Number ABC, Survey Number XXX , Extract Number XXX , ABC Tehsil and District Islamabad.
Steps for Due Diligence taken by Josh and Mak International.
Firstly, in order to confirm the ownership of the property our team paid a visit to the Local Town Patwari Office, from where we came to know that Mr.X is the present owner of the property in question. It may however be worth placing a caution that updating of records at the Patwari Office are sometimes delayed due to parties to the sale being unaware of the legal requirement of keeping such records. Another reason for such delayed updating can be that the Patwari Office always has a large workload in terms of updating records manually in the register. This may lead to delays or omissions.As a result of the site survey and the visits to the relevant offices we have come to the following findings and conclusions. Please find below the reproductions of our findings in a excerpt from an email we have sent earlier:
“To confirm the authenticity of the documents and ownership of land, it is important to know whether the documents included a registration certificate pertaining to the sale of the property, which is being claimed by Mr. X and his family. Such a certificate is in common practice appended on the back of first page of Power of Attorney or on last page of Sale Deed. Furthermore a Power of Attorney and Sale Deed for sale or mortgage of immovable property is required, under Pakistani Law, to be registered under Section 17 of Registration Act 1908. There are of course some exceptions to this requirement but they are not applicable to this case so we can disregard them in this discussion. Without the registration certificate, the authenticity of these documents is not very easy to establish without a complicated procedure of search at the local district registrar offices situated in the Islamabad district. Even if the registrar is approached for the task of authentication, it will be extremely time consuming for them to find the records as all of these records are contained on paper and there is no organized method to come up with them without a registration certificate number or an indication as to which series of numbers it was filed under. Based on the above, Mr. X’s family was advised to provide you with any document, which will give the indication of the Registration Certificate, or anything containing stamp or signature of Registrar or Sub-Registrar. That document would potentially help us to carry out a quicker and more accurate search at the Registration Department, which will place us in better position to establish the proper authentication of the documents”
These documents or registration certificates have still not been received or found through our search.Paragraphs 8-14 of the original opinion are published here only due the the client’s request for anonymity.
- Next, as mentioned above, as per our most recent findings (through a visit to the relevant offices, as the sale of land has also not been registered with the Patwari of X Town, so the only other way to find if a sale has actually taken place would be to check with the District Registrar’s Office. Also without the Sale Agreement’s Registration Certificate it will be very difficult to find this particular register without a clue as to its registration number or series.
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Recently we received an email from our client dated XYZ , with a set of another documents, after we reviewed those documents we confirm that those documents are in conformity of our previous response communicated with the Client. These documents contain a letter No. XYZ issed to Mrs. F which states a reply from Office of the Addl. Deputy Commissioner, District Collector, ICT, Islamabad vide their letter XXX (Appendix L) along with inquiry reports, which is enclosed for information (Appendix G & H). It also contains a letter XYZ dated 28-01-2014 addressed to the Deputy Director (CC) Overseas Pakistanis Foundation, which states that matter was refered to Tehsildar Islamabad for Report. (Appendix G) and finally the email contains reports of Tehsildar Islamabad and one Patwari (Appendix H). All of these have been reviewed and set out in appendices A to S attached.
10.The report of Tehsildar Islamabad is of very poor quality but we have been able to translate it for your perusal (Appendix G)
“Report of Deputy Tehsil Dar, Islamabad X-X-2014
Subject Information regarding property of Mr X. This report states that according to the documentation available with the land record-keepers Mr. X is the owner of X kanals of land situated at Town, details having been furnished below: According to the record register number 123 Mr. X purchased 1 kanals of land with transfer number 12345 for 1000,0000 PKR per Kanal. At the time of purchase, the land was about XXX PKR per Marla in the market. Mr X also purchased in the same khasra (area number) 1 kanal of land with transfer number 13207 on for 60,000 PKR per Kanal. At the time of purchase, the price of this piece of land was 60,000 PKR per Marla and now it is around 100,000 PKR per Marla in the market.”
11.We can confirm that the Report of Patwari states the same. (Appendix H) However in the translation (Appendix G and H) we have found a discrepancy, as in both the reports where they have stated that Mr X purchased the land for 50,000 PKR per Kanal and price of land per Marla was 50,000. Please note that a ‘Kanal’ is bigger than a ‘Marla’ and there are 20 Marlas in One Kanal1. According to our understanding Mr X purchased One Kanal of land for XXXX PKR per Marla.
12.There are also two more documents which have been received by us on XX- 201X, one being a Special Power of Attorney (Appendix B, C) and an other Sale Deed (Appendix D, E)
13.The Special Power of Attorney (Appendix B and C); With regards to this power of attorney we have received a document on 17-03-2014 containing copy of register of stamp vendor from where it was issued) states that Mr. X has given power of attorney to his close confidant MR PYP to look after his property and has given him full authority to deal with it. Alongwith this we also received a Sale Deed (Appendix D and E) in the same email which states that Mr. PYP being holder of Special Power of Attorney sold the land to Mr. Y.
14.It is important to mention here that we have also received an affidavit of Mr. Y(Appendix F), which states that he is sole owner of this property and Mr. X has nothing to do with it
Conclusion
Apart from these documents, (particularly Appendix F) which may be have forged and have still not been registered with any Land Record Keeping Offices, be it Patwari or Tehsildar we are of the opinion that Mr X is the current owner of the land in question.
Description of Kanal can be found on following link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanal_%28unit%29
Next steps (optional)
We would also further advise him that the said power of attorney (Appendix B, C and sale deed (Appendix D, E) could be challenged at courts through a civil suit to claim his right back.
