Documents of which registration is optional [Section 18]

Your grandmother writes her will on two pages and keeps it in a steel almirah. Nobody has told her to take it to the Sub-Registrar, and nobody can force her to. Yet her neighbour registered his will last year and says it was the best decision he made. If the law does not require registration, why would anyone pay for it? Section 18 of the Registration Act is the list of documents you may register, and the reasons follow from the sections around it.

In two minutes

Section 18 lists documents that may be registered but need not be: small-value instruments on immovable property, receipts for them, short leases, instruments on movable property, wills, and all other documents that section 17 does not compel.

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