Property law wire
Daily property law news for India: title judgments, stamp duty revisions, land record notifications, SARFAESI and RERA updates. Tagged by topic and by state.
Fri, 28 Aug
The Karnataka legislature passed the Registration (Karnataka Amendment) Bill, 2026, allowing registration of compulsorily registrable property documents without either party being physically present at a sub-registrar office. The Bill also creates a centralised virtual system for issuing certified copies of registered documents.
The Hindusource
Thu, 27 Aug
Karnataka's Registration Amendment Bill lets sub-registrar offices operate virtually and allows documents to be presented and admitted for registration electronically without personal appearance. It also bars registering any property transfer document unless the original land records are fetched through electronic integration with the state's property databases, and requires the khata, sanctioned plan and conversion order as supporting documents for a sale.
Karnataka Legislative Assembly (via PRS Legislative Research)sourcenotification
Tue, 25 Aug
The Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal ruled that MahaRERA cannot decide a homebuyer's complaint on the strength of a failed conciliation report, and must adjudicate the dispute on its merits. Conciliation is a settlement attempt, so what parties say there cannot be used against them when it breaks down.
LiveLaw Bizsource
Wed, 19 Aug
Karnataka's revenue department is moving property registration to a fully paperless process on the Kaveri 2.0 portal, with documents and registration handled digitally. This follows the e-Khata requirement already needed to register a sale in BBMP and GBA areas.
Bangalore Mirrorsource
Tue, 18 Aug
The Supreme Court held that Section 17 of the SARFAESI Act lets a Debts Recovery Tribunal restore possession only to whoever held it before the bank's enforcement action, not hand possession to a claimant who was never in possession. A third party with an independent title or inheritance claim against the mortgaged property must go to civil court instead, so a clean SARFAESI file can still be sitting on top of a possession dispute the tribunal cannot touch.
TaxGurusource
The Kerala High Court held that a Debts Recovery Tribunal Registrar cannot on his own place an unregistered SARFAESI application before the judge to decide whether the applicant has a right to file it. It set aside a DRT Ernakulam order that had rejected a borrower's case this way and sent it back for a proper hearing, so an early rejection made at the registry step now needs a fresh look.
LiveLawsource
Mon, 17 Aug
The Supreme Court held that a registered sale deed stays valid even if the buyer did not pay the full agreed price, because non-payment is a recovery matter, not a ground to treat the transfer as void. The seller's remedy is to sue for the balance, not to deny that the sale happened.
Times of Indiasource
The Allahabad High Court found the Uttar Pradesh government took possession of temple land next to the Ram Janm Bhoomi temple under a registered 2023 sale deed but never paid the Rs 1.20 crore land price, then tried to claim the land was government land instead of paying up. It ordered the state to deposit the amount with interest within four weeks while the temple trust's separate title suit against the state continues in the trial court.
Verdictumsource
Fri, 14 Aug
Rajasthan's Revenue Department has notified amendments to the 2007 renewable energy land allotment rules, letting the state give government land to solar, wind and green hydrogen projects of 1,000 MW and above even before the developer has a transmission connection. The change also sets up a separate route for allotting land to battery and pumped storage projects and caps how long a developer can sit on allotted land at nine years.
Times of Indiasource
The Haryana Real Estate Appellate Tribunal held that a promoter-allottee relationship exists once a developer accepts and keeps a buyer's money against an identified plot, even if no formal builder-buyer agreement was signed and no unit was ever formally allotted. It upheld RERA Panchkula's order directing Omaxe to allot the buyers a unit in a later phase at the original price, plus delay compensation.
Thu, 13 Aug
A registered deed records that an instrument was executed, not that the seller had title to convey. The ruling matters for anyone treating a registration receipt as the end of a title check.
IndiaLawsource
Buyers who have paid money but are not yet allottees on paper can file before the authority, so a complaint cannot be thrown out for want of a completed allotment.
LiveLawsource
Form 141 becomes the challan-cum-statement for property transfers and Form 132 replaces Form 16B. Form 141 carries a separate stamp duty value field, and the Rs 50 lakh threshold applies on consideration or stamp duty value, whichever is higher.
TaxGurusource
RBI requires banks, co-operative banks and NBFCs to display borrower and guarantor names, outstanding amount, asset classification and the title holder for every secured asset possessed under SARFAESI, updated monthly.
TaxGurusource
The Bill reworks the 1908 registration framework, including online registration and the treatment of instruments such as mortgage by deposit of title deeds that today sit outside compulsory registration.
LiveLawsource
Wed, 12 Aug
Uttar Pradesh's stamp and registration department has approved a hike of up to 25% in circle rates, the government-notified minimum value used for stamp duty, across different zones of Bareilly district, effective from August 25, 2026. The revision varies by locality, with the steepest increases applied to fast-appreciating residential and commercial pockets.
Grihiksource
The Rajasthan Cabinet approved amendments to the Rajasthan Land Revenue Rules, 2007, setting new land allotment ceilings of 2 hectares per MW for solar and wind projects and 2.5 hectares per MW for hybrid projects. Developers must now reserve 10 percent of their allotted project land for tree plantation, following protests over the felling of Khejri trees in western Rajasthan.
Energetica Indiasource
The Delhi High Court set aside a lower court's possession decree that had been passed under Order XII Rule 6 of the Civil Procedure Code (judgment on admissions) in a dispute involving a disputed licence deed and an alleged loan transaction, holding that contested ownership and the true nature of the transaction require a full trial rather than a summary decree. The case was sent back for trial on the merits.
RawLawsource
The RBI has issued draft Interest Rates on Loans and Advances Directions, 2026 that for the first time apply detailed interest rate rules, including monthly interest charging and daily reducing balance computation, to NBFCs and housing finance companies. The new rules would apply to new loans from April 1, 2027, with all existing loans required to migrate to the new framework by April 1, 2029.
Haryana's Real Estate Regulatory Authority has extended the completion timelines of its registered projects by four months, citing supply chain disruption from the West Asia conflict as a force majeure event. The extension follows a similar four month extension already granted by Maharashtra RERA and a Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs advisory to all state RERAs.
Business Standardsource
The Supreme Court declined to order a single, uniform nationwide policy for regularising old unauthorised constructions, saying the issue is a policy matter that varies by state. The bench, led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, asked States and Union Territories to consider the issue themselves instead.
Bar and Benchsource
The Karnataka Real Estate Appellate Tribunal ruled that a developer can meet RERA's two-thirds allottee consent requirement for altering a sanctioned project through authenticated email exchanges, not just physical signatures. It accepted Sobha Ltd's email record for window and common area changes to its Bengaluru project as valid consent, and treated buyers who did not respond as not objecting.
Tue, 11 Aug
Bihar will complete a phased rollout making deed preparation, stamp duty payment, biometric verification and digital signatures fully online across all 141 registration offices by August 17, 2026, after a first phase of 10 offices from July 11 and a second phase of 40 offices from July 30. Registered applicants will receive a digital copy of the deed via WhatsApp or email, and doorstep registration will be offered to citizens aged 75 and above.
Patna Presssource
The Delhi High Court stayed enforcement of a decree favouring the Centre in a dispute over Sujan Singh Park, holding that questions about whether the government could re-enter and resume the land under the Government Grants Act 1895 raise substantial issues that deserve a full appeal, especially given the family's possession since 1943. Eviction was paused pending the outcome of the appeal.
RawLawsource
