9 Mistakes to Avoid when Buying Land in Chennai

So you are about to break your Piggy Bank and buy that plot of farm "lay out" near the beach? Hold on, do this simple reality check before purchasing land in Chennai :

1. Loan-ability  : Ask this question: Will the land qualify for a bank loan? Even if you DON'T need the money to buy the land, asking this question to the seller will come up with all kinds of truths. If the land does not qualify for a bank loan , the papers are probably dodgy.

 Banks in India have instructions NOT to fund land purchases. This is in order to reduce land speculation. However banks are allowed to give loans on land which are approved for residential construction. You must build your primary home on that land within 2 years or else either repay the loan amount or be prepared to pay a higher interest. Every bank has a different set of rules.

But for the purpose of this discussion, we are using bank loan-ability as a check to see if the land titles are good.



2. Land Title : The land developer or the seller should posses a clear title of the land he is selling. Believe me , YOU are not qualified to check it ! Nor your friend who has just introduced you to the seller ! You need a professional lawyer who specialises in scrutinising Land Titles. Don't expect a court going criminal lawyer to check the papers. It would be like going to a Dentist when you have stomach pain.

The seller should have purchased the land in his name and should have a sale deed to prove this. If the seller is a broker or a developer , he may not have a sale deed in his name. He may be operating with a "sale agreement" from the actual seller or with a POA (power of attorney). While these are legally valid, they are fraught with risks of fraud and forgery. You need to employ a lawyer of great skill to study these situations.

The land should further have a "Patta" in the name of the owner. Patta is akin to the "katta" in Karnataka and N.India. While the sale deed is a document verified by the SRO ( Land office of the Sub Registrar), the Patta is issued by the district Collector's office, represented by his Taluk administrator.  Your seller may not have the Patta and may give you the excuse that he has the Patta in the PREVIOUS owner's name etc etc. This is not acceptable. If you buy such a land, you may spend several months or even years working the complex system to get your Patta. There is NO assurance this will happen and you will be open to several risks including claims by the previous Patta holders.

3. Approval to build : There is no wriggling out of this. The land should have any one of these :

            CMDA Approval. If the development is within the city limits , it will have a CMDA ( Chennai Metro Development Authority)  approval.  If the township has been planned and promoted by the developer he will have a CMDA approval number on his layout drawing. Ask for a copy. If the land is being re-sold and if it is in a crowded old locality in the city like T.Nagar or Anna Nagar, please take the document to your lawyer and ask if the plot qualifies for construction. Do NOT assume just because there is an old house on the plot, automatically you will be allowed to demolish and build anew.

If your lawyer is unable to give a clear picture, consult an architect or a licensed surveyor in the locality and get his view. Many plots within the city have strict rules on offsets ( distance between your and neighbouring buildings). If your neighbour has violated and has built closer to his boundary than approved, it will be on YOUR head to leave MORE gap than required. Your architect will be able to advice you on this. The point is, neighbouring conditions will affect the value of your plot.

DTCP Approval : If the plot of land is outside Chennai metro limits, and if your plot is within  a layout, then the development should have a DTCP (District Town & Country Planning Approval). The DTCP approval number will be with the developer. A DTCP approved layout will follow minimum standards when it comes to road width, public spaces like park etc.

More than 80% of the lands being sold by developers around Chennai are "unapproved" layouts. This is an oxymoron. It is like saying you are in an unapproved marriage ! Many developments along the beach and along ECR are so called "unapproved" layouts. This is because there is an official ban on construction within 500 meters from the sea due to the CRZ ( Coastal Regulation Zone). Being 300 meters away from the sea is not better than 100 meters from the sea. Even if your plot is 490 meters from the sea, the CRZ rule will still apply.


PANCHAYAT Approval :
So almost no plot of land on the seaward side of ECR going towards Pondicherry can get approval. Yet, you ask, there are several multi-million dollar beach houses along Chennai to Pondy road. This is due to a grey area in the development rules called the "Panchayat Approval System" . Every village outside the city comes under some Village Panchayat or other. These bodies have local administrative powers over the organic growth of their villages and have authority to give approvals for houses ranging from 750 SFT upto 2000 SFT depending on the size and facilities in the Panchayat. The Panchayat elected council is supposed to apply the DTCP rules at the local level. For example one of the rules state that no house can be built within 90 meters from a cremation ground.

Today through the Panchayat system you can get an approval to build on almost any plot of rural land as long as the Patta for the land is in your name. This means you need to FIRST buy the land and THEN apply for the approval. Panchayats are keen to give approval to even the most suspect requests, because new houses pay taxes adding to the local revenue. An approval to build is normally valid for 2 years and if you do not build within this period, you may have to re-validate the approval.

An approval is pre-requiste to getting electricity from TNEB ( Tamilnadu Electricity Board). Most villages anyway do not have piped water or sewage systems. If in the rare occasion they do, you will be entitled for a connection to those systems at extra cost.

If you are buying land in an  "unapproved layout", creative developers will obtain a letter from the local village Panchayat giving "a no objection to making housing sites" This does not automatically mean that your plot of land is a legal entity. The panchayat letter is supposed to be sent to the DTCP office for scrutiny along with the developers proposed layout. The DTCP will most often turn down such a proposal citing various legitimate concerns. Voila ! Thus is born an "unapproved layout" !

But your wife likes the sea view you say, and you always dreamt of living by the beach. So why don't you buy a boat instead ?

4. No Encumbrance Certificate : The Sub-Registrar office under whose jurisdiction the proposed land comes, will issue an E.C (Encumbrance  Certificate) of the land. It will show previous transactions, buyers and seller names of yester years, whether the land has any lien or loan on it etc. Your lawyer should check the extent of the land to see if it matches the sale deed and the patta. The EC is not a bullet proof document , due to clerical error some entries may be missing or not clear. So it is important to study the same with other parent documents.


5. Possession certificate :   This is a little known but crucial document which even your lawyer may overlook. In fact if you press him for it, he may murmur that you are paranoid. Remember it is YOUR money and you have to be paranoid when it comes to land dealings. This certificate is issued by the VAO or VO ( Village Administrative Officer). The VO is appointed by the Tahsildhar who in turn reports to the District Collector. The VO is supposed to be intimately aware of the goings on in every village - but in reality he won't , but in turn will depend on the village "Thalayari" a local govt appointee. All these chaps used to be part of the British administrative system of revenue collection and spying. But today we have to deal with these relics to get our certificates. Anyway, the VO will demand that the land owner pays up his land taxes , usually a paltry Rupees Three hundred or less, before issuing a possession certificate.

6. Identity Verification: Now that you have become sufficiently paranoid, you will agree with me that one crucial detail that we overlook in all the bonhomie with the broker, is if the seller indeed is who he claims to be ! There are enough part time actors with forged identities who can be called upon to play the role of the seller on that fateful day. Your Sub registrar office neither has the time nor inclination to checking these frivolous details.

Politely but firmly ask to see the originals of at least 3 different identity papers of the seller. Passport, Pan card , voter's id, driving license are all good. Make sure you retain a photocopy of the same. It is within your right to check if the property was purchased by the seller using his own funds. If it is a recent purchase and he has paid through cheque or demand draft, you can ask for those bank transaction details. Is this important ? Not entirely, but there has been cases of Mr X buying the land with funds being provided by Mr Y's account, perhaps a friend or relative, who many years later files a case stating that he should have been part of the purchase / sale etc. So if the value of the land is high, ask your lawyer to verify this.

7. Legal Heirship: Any person who has purchased a land with his OWN funds is at liberty to sell if she/he is  in sound mind. However if the property is ancestral or has been devolved through "settlement" between family members or through a divorce settlement your lawyer should demand legal heirship certificate to verify number of claimants and scrutinise court orders on confirmation of WILL etc.

8. Measure the Land: If you are too lazy now to physically verify the land, believe me you will be very busy with this subject few years from now. So please visit the site and get it measured by the local village surveyor. make sure the extent is as per document and ask the surveyor to make a drawing over the existing FMB (Field Map Book) drawing published by the government and ask him to sign with his official seal. Do not use a private surveyor. His word means nothing in the court. Getting the government surveyor may involve a bit of running around as these chaps are elusive figures. But your local Village Officer should be able to help you. Include this drawing as part of the sale deed when registering the property. If any dimensions or extent is amiss, renegotiate the price with the seller.

9. Proof of Payment:  Try and make all your payments by cheque or draft drawn out in favour of the actual seller preferably mentioning their bank a/c number as well. I know it is often tempting to short change the government of the taxes buy paying out substantial amounts in "black" money or as cash. If the seller is motivated, remember, he will find ways to account for the cheque money you give. It is up to you to insist this, after all you always have the choice of buying something else. Assuming you want to be above board, trying to save 10% of the cost by way of registration fee, is not worth the underlying risks.

Your seller may insist he receives the cash component few hours or days ahead of the actual official registration. Even if he were to hand over the original parent documents as a collateral , you are still open to the seller renegading on his promise.

Your seller or broker may unfairly claim that some or all the money you gave was "short" or had "counterfeit notes".

All large transactions are tracked by our ( albeit lacklustre) vigilance system. After a large transaction if your seller is found to possess largely unexplained cash, the trail will lead back to you, giving you perpetual headache.

If and when , God forbid, the government wants to acquire your land for some purpose such as road expansion or military purpose , they would be more amenable to paying compensation equal to the amount actually shown in your purchase document.

Finally by paying cash and not disclosing the actual amount, you will be simply postponing the problem. Some day, when you wish to sell the land hopefully the price of land will be high and you will make a handsome profit. But as your luck may have it, if you deal with an honest buyer, who insists on paying everything above board, you will end up paying a large capital gain tax!

More later. But for now , start worrying but keep buying. Remember when buying land you can never be too paranoid.