Tamil Nadu has made 'Presence-less Registration' compulsory for the first-time registration of housing plots and apartments in multi-storeyed buildings, extending an earlier 'anywhere registration' facility. Buyers and developers can now complete first-sale registration without visiting a sub-registrar office in person.
What this changes for a title check
First-sale registrations are exactly the transactions a title search cross-checks against the builder's project registration and RERA records, so a shift to a presence-less process changes what evidence a lawyer should expect to see: a digital registration trail and e-signature record in place of a sub-registrar's physical attestation and biometric capture at the counter. Until the state publishes the operative rules, the open question for a title opinion is what identity and consent verification replaces in-person biometric capture at first sale, since that verification step has historically been one of the fraud checks in the registration process.