What to check before buying property in India

Trace the title chain. Obtain certified copies of every sale deed, gift deed, partition deed, will or succession document through which the property passed, going back at least 30 years. Gaps in the chain are the commonest source of subsequent litigation.

Get an encumbrance certificate from the sub-registrar's office for the same period. It lists registered transactions and charges — mortgages, liens, court attachments — against the property. An EC showing a subsisting mortgage means the property is security for someone's loan.

Check the mutation record. Mutation is the updating of the revenue or municipal record to reflect a change of ownership, and it is what determines who receives tax demands. In Karnataka this is the khata; elsewhere it may be called mutation, jamabandi, patta, or record of rights. A property whose mutation has not been done in the seller's name is a warning sign.

Verify identity and capacity. Confirm the seller is who they claim to be, that they are the recorded owner, and that anyone with a share — co-owners, coparceners in an undivided family, legal heirs — has consented. Ancestral and inherited property disputes among heirs are the single largest category of Indian property litigation.

Check for agricultural land conversion. Agricultural land generally cannot be used for non-agricultural purposes without a conversion order, and several states restrict who may purchase agricultural land at all — in some states only agriculturists may buy it.

Obtain the latest property tax receipts, water and electricity bills, and confirm no dues are outstanding. In many states unpaid utility dues attach to the premises and become the buyer's problem.

For flats, obtain the society's no-objection certificate, the share certificate, and confirmation that maintenance dues are clear.

For any constructed property, check the approved building plan, the commencement certificate, and above all the occupancy certificate or completion certificate. An occupancy certificate confirms the building was completed in accordance with the approved plan and is fit for occupation. Buying a property without one leaves you exposed to demolition risk for deviations, difficulty obtaining connections, and problems reselling.

Check the land use zoning with the local planning authority. A residential building on land zoned for something else is a regularisation problem, not a technicality.

For under-construction property, RERA is the central protection. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 requires projects above a threshold size to be registered with the state RERA authority, and requires promoters to disclose the plan, the completion timeline, the approvals and the title on the public RERA portal.

Check the project's RERA registration number and read the disclosures. A project that should be registered and is not is a serious warning, and the agent selling it must also be RERA-registered.

RERA also requires a substantial share of buyer funds to be held in a separate escrow account for that project's construction, which was designed specifically to stop the diversion of money between projects that caused so many stalled developments.

RERA gives buyers a route to complain to the state authority and an appellate tribunal above it, with remedies including interest for delay and, in some circumstances, withdrawal with a refund. Buyers may also approach the consumer commission, and the Supreme Court has confirmed the remedies are complementary.

Check the carpet area rather than the super built-up area. RERA requires sale by carpet area, which is the actual usable floor area, precisely because super built-up figures were used to inflate apparent size.

Stamp duty and registration charges are state taxes and vary substantially between states — this is one of the largest transaction costs and worth checking precisely for your state. Several states offer a reduced rate where the buyer is a woman, which is a genuine and frequently overlooked saving.

Value the property at or above the state's circle rate or guidance value. Registering below it attracts stamp duty on the circle rate anyway, and the difference can be treated as income in the hands of both buyer and seller under the Income-tax Act.

For purchases above a prescribed threshold, the buyer must deduct TDS under section 194-IA and deposit it against the seller's PAN using Form 26QB. This is the buyer's obligation, not the seller's, and failing to do it creates a liability for the buyer.

For purchases from a non-resident seller, the TDS provisions are different and considerably more onerous — take advice, because getting this wrong is expensive.

GST applies to under-construction property but not to completed property with an occupancy certificate. This is a meaningful difference in total cost between the two.

Get the sale deed drafted or reviewed by your own lawyer, not the seller's or the builder's. Builder agreements are drafted in the builder's interest and frequently contain one-sided clauses on delay, cancellation and forfeiture, some of which have been held unfair by courts and RERA authorities.

Registration must be completed at the sub-registrar's office with both parties present, or by a properly executed power of attorney. Insist on registering the actual consideration paid — an under-declared deed cannot be relied on and creates tax exposure for both sides.

A bank's legal and technical due diligence is real but is done for the bank's benefit, not yours. It establishes that the property is adequate security, not that it is a good purchase or free of every defect. Do not substitute it for your own search.

That said, a bank refusing to lend against a specific property is significant information and worth understanding rather than working around.

Compare loans on the total cost, not the headline rate: processing fees, the interest rate benchmark, the spread, prepayment terms and the insurance the lender may bundle. Floating-rate home loans to individuals generally cannot carry prepayment penalties under RBI rules, which makes refinancing a real option later.

The lender will hold the original title documents until the loan is repaid, and will issue a no-dues certificate and return them on closure. Collect them, and get the charge released in the records — an unreleased charge surfaces years later when you try to sell.

Check whether the property is on the lender's approved projects list for under-construction purchases, which is a useful if imperfect signal.

For resale purchases, ensure the seller's existing loan is closed and the charge released before or simultaneously with registration, with the transaction structured so the outstanding loan is paid directly to the existing lender.

Keep every document permanently: the registered sale deed, the chain documents, the EC, the approvals, the occupancy certificate, the tax receipts and the loan closure papers. The next buyer will ask for all of them.