Over 15,000 General Power of Attorney (GPA) holders in around 120 cooperative group housing societies, who wish to get flats transferred in their name, may breathe a sigh of relief soon. For, the Chandigarh Administration has decided to allow transfer of memberships of a group housing society on the payment of a nominal transfer fee, which is expected to be between Rs 10,000 and Rs 30,000. UT Administrator General S F Rodrigues (retd) is expected to give the final nod on Monday.

Acting on the proposal formulated by Deputy Commissioner R K Rao in November last year, the Secretary (Home-cum-Cooperation) had sent the plan to the Senior Standing Counsel of the UT Administration for his opinion. It is learnt that the senior counsel concurred with the proposal.

A senior UT Administration official said: “As such, the Administration has no legitimate clause under which such a hefty transfer fee can be charged. Such grievances were raised several times by federations from housing societies.”

Sources said the Administration was contemplating following the pattern of the Haryana government, wherein the transfer fee is a few thousand rupees. Previously, the Administration had proposed that GPA holders be charged an ‘unearned income’ for transfer of ownership of the flat, which varied between Rs 3.8 lakh and Rs 5.25 lakh, depending on the flat’s area.

However, according to sources, the proposal fell flat as there were no takers for the scheme.