Property Due Diligence
The short version
- Title verification confirms that the person selling the property actually owns it, and that nobody else has a claim on it.
- A standard check covers a 30-year chain of ownership, encumbrance records, khata and tax status, and approval documents.
- A thorough check usually takes about a week, depending on how far back the chain runs.
- The right time to do it is before you pay the token advance — not after.
- Your bank’s loan check is not the same thing. It protects the bank’s exposure, not your ownership.
Working through a property purchase?
Share what you have and we’ll help you understand what the documents show — and what isn’t there.
Most property disputes in Bengaluru are not caused by fraud. They are caused by paperwork that nobody read properly — a previous owner who never released a mortgage, a site converted from agricultural use without the right order, a khata that was never transferred after an inheritance. The seller often does not know either. By the time it surfaces, you have already paid.
This article covers what a verification actually examines, how the process works, and — because it matters — the situations where you do not need one.
What verification actually covers
Verification answers four questions in order. Each one depends on the answer to the one before it.
- Does the seller own it? Tracing ownership backwards through every transfer — sale, gift, partition, inheritance — for the standard 30-year period.
- Is anything owed against it? Registered mortgages, court attachments, and other charges appearing in the encumbrance record.
- Is the use permitted? Whether the land was properly converted from agricultural use, and whether the construction has the approvals it should.
- Is the paperwork current? Khata in the right name, property tax paid to date, no gaps in the record.
A gap at any level matters more than a problem at a lower one. A perfect khata on a property with a broken ownership chain is worth nothing.
Documents examined
| Document | What it establishes | Common problem |
|---|---|---|
| Mother deedThe earliest available deed | The origin of ownership; the starting point of the chain | Missing entirely, or the chain breaks somewhere in the middle |
| Sale deedCurrent owner’s title | How the present seller acquired it | Property description doesn’t match the earlier deeds |
| Encumbrance certificateUsually 30 years | Registered transactions and charges over the period | An old mortgage that was repaid but never released on record |
| Khata certificate & extract | Municipal record of who pays tax on the property | Still in a deceased or previous owner’s name |
| Tax paid receipts | Dues cleared to the current year | Arrears the buyer inherits after registration |
| Conversion orderFor non-agricultural use | Land was properly converted before development | Missing on revenue-layout sites; hard to fix afterwards |
| Approved plan & commencement certificate | The building was sanctioned as built | Extra floors or coverage beyond what was approved |
| Occupancy certificate | Completed building cleared for occupation | Never obtained — very common in older apartment stock |
An encumbrance certificate only reflects transactions that were registered. Unregistered agreements, oral family arrangements, and disputes that never reached a registry will not appear on it. This is the single most misunderstood document in the set — a clean EC is necessary, but it is not proof that the property is clean.
Eight things that stop a deal
- A break in the ownership chain. One transfer in the sequence has no supporting deed, so the chain cannot be traced through it.
- An unreleased mortgage. The loan was repaid years ago, but the release was never registered. The charge still sits on record.
- Missing conversion order. Common on plots in revenue layouts. Regularising this after purchase is slow and sometimes impossible.
- B khata property. Not a defect in itself, but it restricts loans, resale and construction approvals. It must be a priced-in decision, not a surprise.
- Inheritance without a partition deed. Multiple heirs have an interest; one of them selling alone cannot pass clean title.
- Deviation from the sanctioned plan. Built area exceeds what was approved, exposing the structure to penalty or demolition orders.
- No occupancy certificate. Affects resale, some loans, and occasionally utility connections.
- Power of attorney sale without the principal. Requires close examination of whether the POA is valid, current, and actually authorises a sale.
Not sure which of these applies to your property?
Send across whatever the seller has given you and we’ll help you make sense of it.
Bengaluru-specific traps
A khata and B khata
A khata means the property is on the municipal register as a fully compliant property. B khata means it is recorded for tax purposes but the property does not meet all requirements — usually because of a missing conversion order or a deviation from the approved layout. B khata properties trade at a discount for good reason: most lenders will not fund them, and building approvals are difficult. Buying one is a legitimate decision. Buying one without knowing is not.
Revenue layouts
Sites carved out of agricultural land without conversion and without layout approval. They are cheap and they are everywhere on the city’s periphery. The problem is not that they are unsellable — it is that regularisation depends on policy decisions outside your control.
Agricultural land history
Karnataka has historically restricted who may hold agricultural land. Where a property’s history runs back through agricultural ownership, the sequence of conversion and transfer needs proper examination rather than a glance at the current deed.
Older apartment stock
Buildings from the 1990s and 2000s frequently have no occupancy certificate. The building is occupied, tax is paid, life goes on — but the gap resurfaces at resale, and at loan approval for your buyer.
How the process runs
-
Share what you have
Property address, survey or site number, and whatever documents the seller has provided. Photographs of documents are fine at this stage.
Day 0 -
Scope confirmed
We confirm the property type, how far back the chain needs to be traced, and exactly what the report will cover — so you know what is being examined before anything begins.
Day 0–1 -
Record search
Sub-registrar records, encumbrance search for the agreed period, and municipal records for khata and tax status.
Day 1–4 -
Chain reconstruction
Every transfer is placed in sequence and cross-checked against the property description in each deed. This is where breaks show up.
Day 4–6 -
Report delivered
A written report listing what was examined, what is clear, what is missing, and what each gap means in practical terms. Plain language, no jargon.
Day 5–7
Your home loan bank runs its own check before disbursing. It is not a substitute. The bank is confirming the property is adequate security for its loan amount — a narrower question than whether you are acquiring clean, transferable ownership. Banks routinely fund B khata-adjacent situations and properties with approval gaps, because their exposure is covered either way.
When you can skip it
Not every transaction needs a full verification, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise.
- A recent primary purchase from a large developer, in a project where the title has already been examined for hundreds of units and a lender has funded it, carries meaningfully lower risk.
- Property transferring within a family where the history is already known to everyone involved.
- Very small transactions, where the scale of what is at stake is genuinely limited — though this is rarer than people assume.
Everything else — resale, plots, older buildings, anything involving inheritance, anything on the periphery — is worth checking. What it protects against is the loss of the entire investment.
Common questions
Can I do this myself?
Partly. Encumbrance certificates and khata extracts can be obtained through the Karnataka government portals directly. What is harder to do yourself is reading a 30-year chain of deeds and spotting where the property description shifts, where a transfer has no supporting document, or where a release was never registered. The documents are obtainable; the reading is the work.
How far back should the search go?
Thirty years is the standard, and it is what most lenders ask for. Where a property has passed through inheritance or partition within that window, we usually extend the search past the event to establish how the interest arose.
The seller says everything is clear. Do I still need this?
Most sellers believe that sincerely. They inherited the property, or bought it decades ago, and were never told about the unreleased mortgage or the missing conversion order. Seller confidence is not evidence — it usually just means nobody has checked yet.
What happens if the report finds a problem?
The report sets out what the gap is and what it practically means — whether it can be cured before registration, whether it should be reflected in the price, or whether it is serious enough to walk away from. Some findings are fixable in weeks. Others are not fixable at all, and knowing that before you pay is the entire point.
Can you do this for property outside Bengaluru?
Yes, across Karnataka, with timelines varying by district depending on how records are maintained. Tell us the location and we will confirm turnaround before quoting.
Have a question about your documents?
We’re happy to talk it through and explain what to look for. Bengaluru and across Karnataka.
Rightium provides property document verification and due diligence reports. This article describes the verification process in general terms and is not a substitute for a report on your specific property. Timelines vary with property type, location and the condition of available records.