Documents of Which Registration Is Optional

In one line

Anything below the hundred-rupee line, short leases, dealings with movables, wills, and everything section 17 does not compel, may be registered if the parties want.

In exam wording: section 18 provides that any of the following documents may be registered: instruments, other than gifts and wills, dealing with interests in immovable property of a value less than one hundred rupees; instruments acknowledging receipt of consideration for such transactions; leases for a term not exceeding one year and leases exempted under section 17; instruments transferring a decree, order or award of such lesser value; instruments dealing with movable property; wills; and all other documents not required by section 17 to be registered.

The six classes

(a) Instruments, other than instruments of gift and wills, which create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any right, title or interest, vested or contingent, in present or future, of a value less than one hundred rupees, to or in immovable property.

This is the mirror image of section 17(1)(b). Above the line, compulsory; below it, optional. Gifts are excluded because they are always compulsory under section 17(1)(a), and wills because they have their own clause here.

(b) Instruments acknowledging the receipt or payment of consideration on account of such a transaction. The mirror of section 17(1)(c).

(c) Leases of immovable property for any term not exceeding one year, and leases exempted under section 17. The mirror of section 17(1)(d), catching the eleven-month tenancy and any lease the State Government has exempted by the proviso.

(cc) Instruments transferring or assigning any decree, order or award of a value less than one hundred rupees. The mirror of section 17(1)(e).

(d) Instruments, other than wills, which create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any right, title or interest to or in movable property. Note that section 17 does not deal with movables at all, so every such instrument is optional.

(e) Wills. A will is never compulsorily registrable. Section 17(1)(b) is confined to non-testamentary instruments, and section 27 provides that a will may be presented for registration or deposited at any time.

(f) All other documents not required by section 17 to be registered. The sweeping clause, and the point of the section.

Why the section is worth a chapter

Clause (f) makes section 18 a complete residual permission. Between them, sections 17 and 18 divide the world: a document is either one the Act compels to be registered, or one it permits to be registered. There is no third category of unregistrable documents.

That has two consequences worth stating.

The parties can always choose registration. Even where nothing requires it, a person may register a document to obtain the advantages of the register: a public record, the protection of section 50, and the notice that Explanation I to section 3 of the Transfer of Property Act attaches to a registered instrument.