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Orcs of bureaucracy, a miserable friend and your money back

Every time you visit a government office it’s like entering a fantasy world. Being a mere mortal you are full of trepidation and only few seconds away from bolting back the way you came through. One of my imaginative friend likens it to a cave full of orcs ready to send you on a quest around the town for their preciousssss signature.

O: “State thy name mortal”
M: “Ss..sanket”

O: “Do you speak true?”
M: *Gulp* “yes”

O: “Why should I believe you mortal?”
M: “Errm… here’s my Pan card, passport, Aadhar card, Drivin…..”

O: “Swear it”
M: “Ok. I swear that m..…”

O: “In writing mortal, bring me an affidavit, preferably in your blood! Now… out of my sight.”

The orc… err officer actually needs 15 more documents and your first born from you however they won’t tell you all at once. How else could they make you understand that time and convenience is simply an illusion, your back and forth marathons, simply a tool for you to crawl towards your salvation.

This holds true for most of the government procedures so I wasn’t too surprised when a couple of years ago one of my friends approached me looking more miserable than his usual self. Apparently my friend, desirous of purchasing a property, had paid stamp duty as per the builder’s instructions and then later had decided to cancel the deal. He now needed a refund of the stamp duty amount but had realised that it was not his cup of tea. The problem??

Issue 1: The procedure involves lots of paperwork and formalities and constant followup. Time and perseverance are essential to see through this task but in today’s day and age people are too busy to spare time for several such trips to govt offices for follow ups and document submission.

Issue 2: My distressed friend had tried commissioning an agent who could complete the refund procedure on his behalf, the agent innocuously had asked for 25% of the stamp duty amount as his fees, shocked to his financial core he had hightailed it out of there.

When my friend got me on board, I was wondering that if a mere signature from a government office costs half your life, what would it take to get your money back? Anyways long story short I got the money back, eventually, it wasn’t easy but it wasn’t hard too.

Once I completed the procedure successfully, number of such cases found their way to my office. Last year a few of my colleagues and me got together, we wondered, what if we could provide people with an option which would get them proper legal assistance with documents preparation and filing of stamp duty refund procedure and that without them having to pay an arm and a leg for it. Sure it is kind of a niche service with few number of cases so it doesn’t make much sense when you think about it with financial perspective but the people who really need this assistance are in some severe distress. All in all it sounded like an idea which is worth doing and thus was born………..

estampdutyrefund.com
(The first professional facilitation service for refund of your stamp duty.)

So what do we do exactly??

  1. We help you draft and attest documents, submit forms and file stamp duty refund application.
  2. We keep a lookout for any additional requirements which the office calls for from you.
  3. We maintain a constant follow up and ensure that things are on time.
  4. We make sure that you are updated about your application status.

How are you secured??

  1. The stamp duty amount is directly deposited in your preferred account by the govt.
  2. We sign a contract with you for the refund process
  3. In case your application is rejected we return 90% of your fees back, within 3 days.

Our website: www.estampdutyrefund.com

There is a purpose to this showcase our newly launched service here at the rodinhoods, we need to know what your thoughts & opinions are about our service. We do realise that a few of you are either shy to comment here or have convinced themselves that their suggestion might seem irrelevant to us. Well see it as this way, any and I mean ANY opinion and suggestion from your part means that you not only noticed our service but cared enough to acknowledge our service and moreover actually took the pain of typing out a message with our well being in your mind. Now does that sound irrelevant to you? So please, any suggestions & questions on the service are welcome and awaited eagerly. Thank you for reading. Have a great day ahead!

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Unrelated awesome read by same author:

Sarvesh’s Startup? Middle class?? Oh boy!!

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4 Comments

  1. sarvesh,

    you have an amazing ability to solve real life problems!

    pls get on to twitter. i need to promote this 🙂

    i went to the site. i really like the look and feel. very sleek. very easy to understand (unlike most legal stuff).

    about the venture – i think you’ll do well. my skin crawls when someone tells me i have to go to a govt office. i get the hives. we just bought an apt 6 months ago and my husband claims he can now help anyone do all the paperwork – COZ NOBODY EVER TELLS YOU EVERYTHING PROPERLY!!!

    i love the story behind the story. and i think you will keep solving people’s problems because you genuinely want to make people’s lives easier.

    good luck. 

  2. Thanks Asha. Working on twitter.

  3. What do you think is the addressable market for this business?

  4. Revenue wise, the state government of maharashtra receives refund application for a minimum amount of 6-7 crore per year. Lots of people fail to apply within the validity, others application gets rejected due to improper reasons for filing refund, proper guidance & counsel alone may increase the percentage.

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