Land title search in Maharashtra: verify before you buyमालकी हक्क पडताळणी

Most buyers stop at the photograph of a 7/12 the broker sent on WhatsApp. That extract is where a title check starts, not where it ends. A 7/12 extract (सातबारा उतारा, satbara utara) is a revenue record: Village Form VII, the record of rights, and Village Form XII, the crop register, printed together under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966. It shows who the revenue administration recognises as the occupant of a survey number. Section 157 of the Code gives that entry a presumption of correctness, and a presumption can be rebutted in court. It is not a title deed.

Title is established by the chain of registered deeds at the Sub-Registrar's office, read together with the mutation register that carries each deed into the village record, and then tested against everything that can sit on the land: a restriction on transfer, a charge, a tenant, a court case, an acquisition notice, a planning reservation. That is at least six records from four different offices. The eight steps below take them in the order an advocate would, and name the portal for each one. If you have never read a 7/12, start with the guide to reading one and come back.

Pull a current, digitally signed copy yourself from digitalsatbara.mahabhumi.gov.in rather than working from the seller's copy. Match the village name and the survey or gat number against the sale documents character by character. Then read every part of the extract, in this order:

• The occupant's name, against the seller's identity document. A name that differs by a syllable, an initial or a transliteration is a question, not a formality.
• The area, against the area in the last registered deed and the area the seller quotes.
• The occupancy class next to the name. भोगवटादार वर्ग-2 (bhogvatadar varg 2, occupant Class II) land cannot be sold without the Collector's prior permission. The occupancy class guide explains why a sale without it can be void.
• Every entry in the इतर हक्क (itar hakka, other rights) column: bank loans, society charges, tenancies, rights of way, attachments and restrictions. Each one is a claim that survives the sale unless it is cleared. The encumbrance guide covers how they are recorded and released.
• Any pending ferfar number. See below.
• The tenure line, which says whether the holder is an occupant or a government lessee, and any reference to a non-agricultural (NA) order.

A pending ferfar (फेरफार, mutation entry) means a change in ownership or rights has been written into Village Form VI but not yet certified by the revenue officer. Until certification, the 7/12 still shows the old position and the seller's own claim to the land has not been confirmed. Do not pay a token against an extract with a pending entry. Wait for certification, pull a fresh signed extract, and check that the certified entry says what the seller told you it would say.

The 8A extract (८-अ, Village Form VIII-A) is the holding register. Where the 7/12 is organised by survey number, the 8A is organised by the holder's khata (account) number and lists every parcel that holder has in the village, with the total area and the assessed land revenue. Ask for it because it catches what a single 7/12 cannot: the seller's other parcels in the same village, co-holders on the same khata the seller did not mention, and an area total that does not agree with the 7/12, which usually means shares or an unrecorded partition.

Match the khata number printed on the 7/12 to the 8A, match the survey number and the area, and check the 8A total against what the seller claims to own. The 7/12 and 8A guide sets the two side by side.

Every change to the record of rights enters through a mutation entry in Village Form VI: a sale, an inheritance, a gift, a mortgage, a partition, a court order. Each entry states its basis, names the parties, carries a date and an entry number, and ends with the certifying officer's endorsement. Disputed entries go to a separate register and are decided by the revenue officer. Read the entries in sequence back to the point where the seller, or the seller's family, acquired the land, and ask for the extract of every mutation the 7/12 cites. Registers older than the digital ones are scanned on aapleabhilekh.mahabhumi.gov.in.

Gaps are as informative as entries. An inheritance that was never mutated means today's seller may be one heir among several who all have to sign. An entry cancelled after objection means a dispute happened, and you need to know how it ended. A registered deed with no matching mutation, or a mutation with no deed behind it, is a break in the chain until it is explained. The ferfar guide walks through how an entry becomes final.

Registered instruments live at the Sub-Registrar's office, and each one has an Index II (सूची क्रमांक २, suchi kramank 2) entry: document number, registration date, office, parties, property description and consideration. IGR Maharashtra's free e-search at freesearchigrservice.maharashtra.gov.in returns these entries by district, village and property number for the years it has put online; earlier years need a search at the office.

Search thirty years back. The Limitation Act, 1963 sets twelve years for a claim by adverse possession against a private owner and thirty years against the government, so a thirty year chain clears both periods; banks search the same span. Match every deed to a ferfar entry and every ferfar entry to a deed, check that each seller was the previous deed's buyer, and note any consideration far below the Ready Reckoner rate for that year. The title chain guide explains what a break looks like and what resolves it, and the free village activity tool shows what registered transactions our cache holds for the village.

Land disputes in Maharashtra sit in different forums depending on what is disputed, and each forum keeps its own list. Revenue court matters before the Tahsildar, the Sub-Divisional Officer and the Collector (mutation objections, tenancy, partition) are on eqjcourts.gov.in, searchable by survey number. Civil suits are on services.ecourts.gov.in by party name, and Bombay High Court matters on bombayhighcourt.gov.in. Where a bank entry sits on the 7/12, the Debts Recovery Tribunal list matters too. Search the survey number and every recorded holder's name, with spelling variants.

A pending case is an unknown outcome, not a defect and not a clearance. Under Section 52 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, a transfer made while a suit about the land is pending takes the land subject to the result of that suit. A decided case still needs its order read, because an order can be under appeal. The litigation check guide lists the forums and the search keys.

Acquisition under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 proceeds through published stages: a preliminary notification under Section 11, a declaration under Section 19, notice to interested persons under Section 21, then the award. National highway land is acquired under the National Highways Act, 1956, and its notices appear on the Bhoomi Rashi portal; MIDC acquires under the Maharashtra Industrial Development Act, 1961. Every stage names villages and survey numbers, so the check is a search for your survey number in each, on the district Collector's website and the project authority's.

Reservation is different. A development plan or regional plan under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 can earmark land for a road, a garden or a school without any acquisition notice, and only the zone certificate from the planning authority shows it. Ask for the zone certificate and, for a plot sold as non-agricultural, the NA order under Section 44 of the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966. A project in the next village proves nothing about your parcel in either direction; only a document naming your survey number does. The acquisition guide sets out the paper trail in order, and the acquisition indicators layer shows how the report matches notices to a parcel.

Two versions of the 7/12 exist online. The free view on bhulekh.mahabhumi.gov.in is marked unsigned (विना स्वाक्षरी, vina swakshari) and is for information only. The digitally signed extract from digitalsatbara.mahabhumi.gov.in carries a QR code and a verification number that the issuing portal recognises, and it is the version to accept from a seller. Verify it yourself: scan the QR code or check the verification number against the portal, then compare the name, the area, the class and the other rights column with what the seller told you. A photograph of an extract is neither version.

Aapli Chawadi, the Revenue Department's digital notice board, lists the mutations in process for each village. A change the seller has not mentioned can be sitting there before it reaches the 7/12.

The record describes a shape; the land has one. Find the parcel on the village map on mahabhunakasha.mahabhumi.gov.in, or through the free plot locator, and look at its shape, its neighbours and its access. A parcel with no road touch on the map needs a recorded right of way, not a verbal assurance. Then go, or send someone with no stake in the deal: possession cannot be read from any portal, and a boundary is fixed only by a DILR measurement (mojni), never by a cadastral shape. Where the village has been consolidated, the deed may name a survey number and the 7/12 a gat number; the survey number guide explains how to tie them together.

• A pending ferfar number on the 7/12: wait for certification.
• भोगवटादार वर्ग-2 with no Collector's permission or conversion order: no sale is possible.
• Any entry in the other rights column (loan, society charge, tenant, attachment) without a registered release.
• The survey number in a Section 11 or Section 19 notice: the land is being taken.
• A live case on eqjcourts.gov.in or eCourts naming the survey number or the seller: outcome unknown.
• Area on the 7/12, the 8A and the last deed that do not agree: partition or share dispute.
• A seller whose name is not on the 7/12 as occupant: a power of attorney holder or an heir with no certified ferfar.
• Only an unsigned or photographed extract on offer: pull the signed one yourself.

A title search by a licensed advocate covers the chain for the searched period and offices, the encumbrances and cases found, and ends in an opinion. That opinion is the legal step, and nothing on a website replaces it. A records screening, which is what a LandSahi report is, does the assembling that comes before it: it reads the official portals, transcribes the Marathi entries, drafts the chain from the mutations, runs the survey number against the revenue courts, and links every finding to the page it came from. Every section reads as ok, warn, danger or unknown, and unknown is never dressed up as clear. The sample report walkthrough shows what that looks like on a real parcel, and pricing lists what each depth covers. Take the assembled file to your advocate; the file is the point.