Till date only owners, who had bought property before December 31, 2007, could apply under the LRS. The Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD) department has now proposed that those who bought property in the unauthorised layouts after that date should also be permitted to apply under the LRS.

Sources said the department had sought the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah’s permission for amending the LRS rules and for its further extension of three to six months. The government had introduced the LRS with the condition that transactions of respective properties should have been completed before December 31, 2007. “There are, however, several instances of property being sold after introducing the LRS,” a senior MAUD official said.

In such a scenario, the new owners were forced to approach the previous owners — who owned the property prior to 2007 — and convince them to apply for regularisation, but under the latter’s names.

Several plot owners had appealed to the government that they were facing many difficulties in adopting the above procedure for regularisation. “In some cases, the existing owners could not trace the previous owners. In others, the banks were refusing to provide loans to the existing owner as the application for regularisation had the name of previous owner,” the official said.

The MAUD, however, has said that owners should produce concrete proof that the property and layout was in existence before 2007.