Documents to Check Before Buying Land in Pune — A Complete Checklist

Buying land is one of the biggest transactions of your life, and rushing it is expensive. Almost every land dispute we're called into afterwards could have been avoided by two things nobody did before signing: reading the documents properly, and measuring the land.

Use this checklist. It's ordered so the cheapest checks that can end the deal come first.

Call now — +91 96577 17268Tap to speak to a surveyor directly.

1. Ownership and title

• 7/12 extract — download a fresh, digitally signed copy yourself rather than accepting the seller's printout. Our guide on how to read a 7/12 covers every column.
• Property card — the urban equivalent, for non-agricultural land.
• Mutation (ferfar) entries — ask for the actual documents, not just the numbers listed on the extract.
• The chain of previous sale deeds — ideally 30 years back.
• Identity of every owner — joint holdings need every co-owner to sign. A missing heir's signature can undo a sale years later.
• Death certificates and heirship where a recorded owner has died.

2. Encumbrances and permissions

• Encumbrance check — confirm there is no loan, mortgage or charge on the land. Look at the "other rights" column and get a search done.
• NA order and sanad — if the plot is sold as non-agricultural, read the actual order. It states what use was permitted.
• Zone and reservation — the Development Plan decides what the land may become. Green belt, agricultural zone or a public reservation can make your plan impossible regardless of what you pay.
• Tenure type — varg 1 is freely transferable; varg 2 needs government permission to sell.
• Litigation — any pending case or injunction on the property.

3. The on-ground check — most overlooked, most important

However clean the paperwork looks, only a survey tells you whether the on-paper area actually exists on the ground. A jaga mojni verifies:

• The exact boundaries and corners, marked physically
• Actual measured area versus the area on the 7/12
• Any encroachment — a neighbour's wall, shed or path inside your boundary
• A road widening line, drain or nallah crossing the plot
• Whether the plot's shape matches the layout or plan you were shown
• How it sits against the neighbouring boundaries

This is the step buyers skip because it costs money at a moment when they're already spending a lot. It is also the only step that tells you whether you are buying what you think you are buying.

4. Access, services and physical reality

• Approach road — is the access legal and recorded, or is it a neighbour's goodwill that ends when the neighbour sells?
• Road width — narrow access limits what you can build and what a bank will fund.
• Water and electricity — feasibility of connections, and the real cost of bringing them to the plot.
• Drainage and flooding — walk the site in or just after monsoon if you can. A plot that ponds water is obvious in July and invisible in April.
• Levels and slope — steeply sloped land costs far more to build on than the price per guntha suggests. On hilly plots around Maval, Mulshi or Lonavala, get a contour survey before you commit.

5. At registration

• Verify the identity of everyone signing
• Confirm the stamp duty and registration calculation
• Take a copy of every document you were shown, signed and dated
• Register promptly — an unregistered agreement protects you far less than people assume

The two-professional rule

Have the documents verified by a lawyer and the land measured by a surveyor. They answer different questions, and neither can answer the other's.

A lawyer will tell you the title is clean. Only a survey will tell you that the clean title covers 1.5 gunthas less than you're paying for, or that the compound wall on the east side is eighteen inches inside the neighbour's land.

Common questions

What does a pre-purchase survey cost?

It depends on the plot size and location — but it's a small fraction of the price of the land, and a rounding error against the cost of discovering an area shortfall afterwards. We quote a fixed scope before starting.

The seller says a survey was done last year. Is that enough?

Ask to see it, then judge: who carried it out, what instruments, are there coordinates, and are the corners still marked on site? A survey you commission answers to you. One the seller commissioned answers to them.

Can you survey before I've bought the land?

Yes — that's exactly when it's most useful. We need site access and ideally the 7/12 or property card. Many of our surveys are commissioned by buyers during the negotiation, and the findings quite often change the price.

Before you sign

Read the documents, then measure the land. Tell us the survey number and location and we'll tell you what a pre-purchase survey would involve, what it costs and when we can be there.

Call now — +91 96577 17268Tap to speak to a surveyor directly.

Or send the plot details and we'll call you back.