The Checklist to Follow Before Buying a Plot in India

In India, buying a plot of land is an altogether different ballgame than buying an apartment or a villa in a society or even a standalone building complex. Buying a plot requires a lot of careful paperwork to establish the fact that the buyer is the legitimate owner of the property and can undertake construction activities on the land as per the given guidelines.

Here’s a checklist to help with all the steps and formalities required to buy a plot, whether it is one of the CMDA approved plots in Thirumazhisai or a KMDA approved one in Kolkata.

Ownership Rights

This is the first and foremost thing that every prospective buyer must check and ask for. The buyer should be sure that the person selling the property is the rightful owner of the land and is not trying to push the deal through by misusing any of the laws and by-laws related to the sale of the property. Carefully reading the title deed and getting the same verified by an attorney should thus be the first step towards buying a property.

Bank Loan

Nowadays, hardly do people buy a property with their own savings. Most people depend on bank loans for the purchase. Banks too perform detailed checks on the property to ensure that they are giving the money for a genuine reason and the risk factors associated with the repayment are minimal. Thus, one can rest assured that if a bank has approved the property, it is genuine, and the property deal would be genuine too.

The NA Status

Since India is essentially an agriculture-based country, all the land within its borders is basically agricultural land, unless the government has given approval for it to be used for other purposes. So, all land in India is either agricultural or non-agricultural land as per the mandate issued by the government. Thus, before buying a land parcel, one must always check whether it has the NA status. It is also important to note that simply having the NA status does not give people a free hand to go ahead with any kind of construction as the NA status comes with specifications on the kind of construction that is permissible. So, if someone wants to build a resort on a particular land parcel, having the NA-Resort would be essential as anything else like an NA-Residential or NA-commercial would simply make the whole construction illegal.

The FSI

This is another factor that must be considered while buying a plot as it would determine how much construction work can be done on that particular piece of land. FSI stands for Floor Space Index and determines whether the owner can undertake construction work in the whole plot or only a certain percentage of it. FSI 100% would mean that the entire plot can be used for construction while anything lesser than that would simply mean that the whole property cannot be used for construction.

Apart from these, there are a host of other documents and legal formalities that need to be completed in order to legitimise the sale of plots, whether they are CMDA approved plots in Thirumazhisai or BMC approved ones in Mumbai or any other plot under the jurisdiction of any city. Buyers can always ensure the legitimacy of their deal by getting the due diligence done with the help of good and experienced attorneys.