There has been flood of offers by builders recently, offering weekend homes/farm houses/villas etc situated outside city limits but within a couple of hours driving distance from the city.
Though the prices are cheap compared to city living, the main deterrence/worry is the legal status of the land in question. How does one verify whether the houses shown in the brochures have all the necessary permits, since village land does not come under Municipal jurisdiction.
The steps for the same are outlined below..

• Check whether the Non-agricultural land order has been issued by the Tehsildar. Do not believe the Non agricultural order shown by the builder/developer as this may be forged. Contact the local tehsildar office with the gut/hissa number (as per 7/12). Non-Agricultural land certificate is valid for a limited time. So check whether the land is currently Non Agricultural. You can also check online for the latest 7/12 which shows the current owner of the land….along with the status (NA or Non-Agricultural land)
• Check the latest 7/12 extract of the land. This should specify the said land as Non-agricultural land. No construction can take place on agricultural land.
• Check with the nearest town planning dept office whether the housing project plans confirm to the overall development plans of the plot of land. The development plan of the area should be in the local town planning office (Collector\’s Office of the District)
• For even more security, try to get an official survey of the land done via the local tehsil office ( the tehsil office undertakes surveys of land for a fee ), just to verify whether the plot of land being shown to you is actually the land that is on the 7/12 order, tehsildar order, town planning approval.
• If you are buying agricultural land in Maharashtra, you need to have agricultural land elsewhere in India or Maharashtra on your name. This patta will be required at the time of registering the sale deed. And it needs to be translated into English if it is from out of state.

CAUTION

Just because the ownership records in the Talathi office are clean does not mean that the land is clean. Despite land records being clean there could be multiple court cases on the piece of land. And you will never know this unless you decide to undertake a detailed investigation of the legal records. And if you think you will simply search online on the court websites, you will be groping in the dark as the court website does not give any details unless you know the date or year of the case filing.

Caution : Dividing big plot with govt given survey and hissa number into smaller plots and then building bungalows on it or selling individual small plots is illegal without collector/town-planning dept approval.
And most of the so called ‘Bungalow Projects’ and ‘weekend homes’ are illegal for that reason.

Once you have verified and signed and registered the sale deed, its a must to get fencing done around the plot to prevent encroachment.

Mayur Singh (Sky Properties)