ISLAMABAD, Feb 26: The district administration will start registration of real estate and car dealers from Monday to check unlawful deals, Deputy Commissioner Ch Muhammad Ali told Dawn on Sunday.

“The law was being implemented for the first time in Islamabad,” the official said.

Though the law on registration of car and property dealers had recently been enacted for the entire country, first of all it was being implemented in Islamabad as a pilot project.

Under the law, all car and real estate dealers would get a certificate from the district administration after getting themselves registered.

The official said it would be mandatory for all the dealers to mention their registration number on all sale/purchase deeds so that they could be proceeded against in case of fraud in the deals.

“A large number of people have ventured into the real estate business due to the recent property boom. “Their registration is necessary to know what type of people they are,” the deputy commissioner said.

However, market sources said due to the current slum in real estate, a large number of agents had closed down their offices and were now investing money in other trades.

The sources said the government wanted to bring all real estate and car dealers into the tax net that was why they were being registered.

The deputy commissioner said he had received complaints that some property dealers were cheating innocent people by selling them fake or already sold plots thus depriving them of their hard-earned money. “If the property dealers get commission for a sale/purchase deal, they should also be responsible for any illegality in them,” the official said.

Ch Muhammad Ali said besides registering car dealers, they would be bound to avoid parking a large number of vehicles in front of their roadside offices causing problems to the commuters.

Under the registration system, the car dealers will have to maintain a record of all the cars they possessed, purchased or sold.

The deputy commissioner said relevant magistrates would regularly check the record books of the car dealers so that they could not sell or purchase stolen vehicles and those with tampered chassis numbers.

Talking about the punitive action against car and real estate dealers in case of a fraud, the official said fine and imprisonment would be awarded to those found guilty.