The registration of individual shop spaces in commercial complexes across Keralam has run into a roadblock due to the unavailability of pre-mutation sketches, digital survey documents that specify the extent of land attached to a property.

Under the 2024 amendments to the Kerala Registration Rules, submitting a pre-mutation sketch is mandatory for registering property deeds in villages where the digital survey has been completed. When a portion of a building is sold, the transaction also involves the transfer of proportionate ownership of the land on which the structure stands. A pre-mutation sketch is therefore required to register such transactions.

The resulting bottleneck has stalled property registrations, depriving the government of crores of rupees in revenue from registration fees.

A similar issue had earlier affected the registration of apartments, flats and villas. The Revenue Department resolved the problem by allowing their registration without pre-mutation sketches and introducing the necessary provision on the registration portal.

However, the exemption has not been extended to commercial complexes and shopping centres, leaving their owners and prospective buyers in a difficult position. Consequently, while flats and villas in a building complex can be registered, individual commercial units in the same complex cannot.

Extending the exemption already granted to flats and villas to commercial complexes and individual shop spaces, along with the necessary modifications to the registration portal, is seen as a possible temporary solution to the problem.