What Happens After You Apply: How Registrars Process Special Window Transfers

Once your papers reach the company or its registrar and transfer agent (RTA), SEBI's circular sets out what has to happen. Knowing the steps helps you tell a request that is moving from one that is stuck.

1. Identity checks on both sides

PAN, identity proof and address proof are verified for the transferee, which is you, and for the transferor, the seller. If the name on your PAN differs from the name on the deed, perhaps after marriage or a change of spelling, the transfer can still be registered once you supply an officially valid document or a gazette notification explaining it.

2. The seller's signature

The registrar compares the seller's signature on the deed with the specimen in its records. Where the signature differs or is missing, the circular requires the procedure in Para (B) of Schedule VII to SEBI's Listing Regulations. In short, the registrar writes to the seller at the address it holds and gives them the chance to object.

3. When the seller can't be reached

This is the step most old transfers end up at. A notice procedure applies if the objection memo to the seller can't be delivered, if the seller can't be traced, doesn't cooperate or is unable to, or if any document needed for the identity checks is unavailable. The company then publishes a notice of the proposed transfer:

• In at least one English-language national daily with nationwide circulation
• In at least one regional-language daily published where the seller last lived, according to the company's records
• On the listed company's website

Objections can be raised within 30 days of the advertisement, and the transfer is registered only after those 30 days are over. The company may charge you for the advertisement, but SEBI says the fee should be minimal.

4. If someone objects

Disputes between buyer and seller are excluded from the window and left to a court or the NCLT. A genuine objection from the seller or the seller's family is therefore likely to end the request under the window.

5. Credit, and the lock-in

Once the transfer is registered, the shares are credited to your demat account, and the company or registrar informs the depository that they are locked in for one year. What that means for you is covered in the one-year lock-in.

The 70-day deadline

Companies and registrars must process a request within 70 days of receiving it with complete documentation. Two things follow. The clock starts only when your file is complete, so a missing document holds it back. And where a newspaper notice is needed, the transfer can't be registered until its 30-day objection period has run.

Following up

• Keep the tracked-post receipt and a copy of everything you sent
• Quote the registrar's inward or reference number in every message. KFintech and MUFG Intime both let you track service requests online; see our guides to KFintech and MUFG Intime.
• Ask in writing, early, whether your request is complete. If something is missing, you want to know in week two, not on day 70.
• If the deadline passes without an answer, write to the company's compliance officer, and then complain on SEBI's SCORES portal. Here is how escalation works.