Registering a document does not prove ownership. This is the most expensive misunderstanding in Indian property deals. The Sub-Registrar only records that a paper was signed. He does not check whether the person signing it owned anything. A registered sale deed from someone who never owned the land gives you nothing at all.
Below is the order in which papers are checked before a buyer in and around Coimbatore is told it is safe to pay.
The documents to obtain
- Parent document — the deed by which the present owner got the property. Everything else is checked against this one.
- Thirty years of title — every sale or transfer in that period, in order, with no gaps that nobody can explain.
- Encumbrance certificate (Form 15) — for the same thirty years, from the Sub-Registrar office. It shows registered deals and any loan taken on the land.
- Patta and chitta — the revenue records. Check that the present owner's name is on them.
- A-Register extract and FMB sketch — the survey papers. These decide the real size and the real boundaries.
- Property tax receipts — the latest one, and a few earlier years, to show the tax was paid without a break.
- Approved layout and building plan — actually approved by the planning authority, not just applied for.
- Completion or occupancy certificate for constructed property.
- Legal heirship certificate where the property came down through the family instead of by a deed.
- No-objection certificates if the land was farm land before, or falls inside a controlled zone.
- Latest EB and water bills — small proof, but they show who has actually been treated as the owner.
Why thirty years
The Limitation Act, 1963 gives an owner twelve years to sue for possession. That is counted from the day someone else began holding the land as their own. Thirty years is the safe margin over that. It covers a full generation of transfers, so an old sleeping claim is unlikely to survive unseen. Checking only the last sale — which is all a hurried buyer does — tells you nothing about a problem created two owners ago.
Three defects that surface late
1. The unreleased co-owner
A property comes down to several heirs. One of them is abroad, not interested, or simply forgotten. The others sell it. The encumbrance certificate looks clean, because the missing heir never registered anything, so nothing shows up on it. The problem appears years later, when that heir or their children claim a share. The answer is a registered release deed from every heir, taken before you pay — not after.
2. Extent that does not match the survey
The sale deed says one size. The field measurement book says another. Where a plot has been split informally over the years, the paper and the ground stop matching. Comparing the FMB sketch with the deed before you pay is the only reliable check, and it is the one most often skipped.
3. Agricultural land not converted
Land marked as farm land in the revenue records cannot be built on as a house site until it is converted. Buyers are often told the conversion is "in process". It is either done or it is not, and the A-Register extract will tell you which.
The practical rule
Finish checking the title before you pay the advance, not between the advance and the balance. Once money has changed hands, a buyer starts wanting the problems to look small. The problems people talk themselves past are exactly the ones that become a court case ten years later.