Why official records differ across Indian states and portals

Priya had done this before. Her family bought a flat in Pune five years ago, and she remembers the term "7/12 extract" — the document that showed who held rights to the land under the building. Now she's relocating to Bengaluru for work and shortlisting a resale flat there. She asks the seller's broker for the "7/12" and gets a blank look. In Karnataka, nobody calls it that. What she actually needs is a khata certificate from the BBMP, and possibly an encumbrance certificate (EC) pulled from the state's KAVERI portal. Same underlying idea — proof of who holds rights, and whether the property carries encumbrances — completely different name, completely different portal, completely different form on the page.

This is one of the most disorienting moments for a first-time buyer who has done their homework in one state and then buys in another. It isn't a sign that something is wrong with the records, or that one state is more "advanced" than another. It's a structural feature of how property records work in India, and once you understand why, reading any state's records becomes a lot less intimidating.

Why land records diverge: land is a state subject

Under India's constitutional scheme, land and land revenue are State List subjects. That means each state government — not the central government — is responsible for maintaining land records, running its own revenue department, and deciding how those records get digitised and published. There has never been a single national land-records format that every state was required to adopt.

Historically, each state (and often each princely-era administrative unit before Independence) built its own revenue record-keeping tradition, tied to its own land-settlement history, its own village-accounting systems (patwari in the north, talathi in Maharashtra, karnam/village accountant in the south), and its own local-language terminology. When computerisation began — starting in the 1990s and accelerating through the 2000s and 2010s — each state digitised what it already had, rather than starting from a shared blueprint. The result is a patchwork of portals, each internally consistent, but not consistent with each other.

Layered on top of that is the more recent SVAMITVA push. As part of a nationwide land-record modernisation effort, drone-based property surveys have been extended to villages across the country to formalise rural property records and issue property cards — a scheme that, per government reporting, has covered a large share of India's villages (svamitva, 2025 progress reporting). Even this national programme, though, is implemented through each state's existing land-records apparatus, not a replacement for it. So the underlying push toward better records is national; the record itself, its name, and where you go to fetch it, stays state-specific.

The common record classes, and what each state calls them

Despite the different names, most states' land and property records fall into a handful of functional classes. Once you can map a state's local term to the right class, you know what you're actually holding.

• Land/revenue record (ownership + cultivation/possession status). Maharashtra calls this the 7/12 extract (Saat-Baara), issued via MahaBhulekh. Karnataka's rural equivalent is the RTC (Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops), accessed through the Bhoomi portal, while urban Bengaluru uses the BBMP khata. Telangana runs this through Dharani. Uttar Pradesh calls the record khatauni (with khasra as the underlying plot/survey record), available on UP Bhulekh. West Bengal calls it the khatian, on Banglarbhumi. Rajasthan's version is the jamabandi, accessible through Apna Khata. Gujarat also uses the 7/12 term, through the AnyROR portal. Madhya Pradesh runs MP Bhulekh with its own khasra/khatauni terminology.
• Encumbrance record (charges, mortgages, transactions registered against the property). This is the Encumbrance Certificate (EC), and while the concept is fairly uniform, the fetch mechanism differs — Karnataka's EC comes through KAVERI, Tamil Nadu's through TNREGINET, and other states through their own sub-registrar or revenue portals.
• Municipal/property-tax record. This is usually a locally issued khata (Karnataka), property tax receipt, or municipal assessment record, tied to the urban local body rather than the state revenue department.
• Registration record (the sale deed / conveyance itself). Recorded at the sub-registrar's office in whichever state and sub-district the property sits in, regardless of what the land record above it is called.

State portal reference table

Treat this table as an orientation map, not a substitute for pulling the actual record for the state you're buying in — portal names, fees, and processes are revised periodically by each state government, so confirm the current name and fee on the relevant state site before you rely on it.

What differs beyond the name: language, cadence, and fees

Three things vary state to state beyond just terminology, and they're worth planning around:

Regional language. Many of these records are issued primarily in the state's official language — Marathi for a 7/12, Kannada for an RTC, Bengali for a khatian. English-language portal interfaces exist in most states now, but the certificate text itself is often bilingual or local-language-only. If you're buying in a state whose language you don't read, budget time to get a proper translation rather than relying on a rough gist.

Update cadence. Some land records update close to real time when a mutation (change of ownership) is registered; others lag, especially in states still working through backlog digitisation or SVAMITVA-linked resurveys. This is exactly why every record you pull should carry the date you pulled it — a land record is a point-in-time snapshot, not a live feed.

Fees and process. Some portals let you download a record for a small nominal fee instantly online; others require an in-person application at a taluka or revenue office, or a longer processing window for a certified copy versus a plain printout. First-time buyers relocating across states are often surprised that a process that took ten minutes online in one state takes a physical visit in another.

A cross-state buyer's mini scenario

Consider a young professional, transferred from Chennai to Hyderabad, shortlisting an apartment for the first time outside Tamil Nadu. In Chennai, they knew to check the Patta and pull an EC via TNREGINET. In Hyderabad, the equivalent land and registration record sits within Telangana's Dharani platform, structured quite differently — combining land record and registration functions in one system rather than separating them the way Tamil Nadu does. Rather than assuming the Chennai checklist transfers unchanged, they treat the underlying questions as constant — who holds rights to this land, what charges exist against it, is the building's plan sanctioned — and then find out, specifically for Telangana, which document answers each question and from which office or portal. That mental shift — question first, document-name second — is what makes cross-state buying manageable.

What stays constant no matter the state

However different the names and portals get, a few things hold everywhere in India:

• The core question — who currently holds rights to the property, and are there encumbrances against it — is the same everywhere, even when the document proving it looks different.
• Building-level approvals (sanctioned plan, occupancy certificate, RERA registration where applicable) exist as a parallel track to the land record itself, in every state.
• Carpet area, built-up area, and super built-up area are defined the same way under RERA rules nationally, even though how a builder or seller discloses them can vary in practice — see our carpet area calculator for a quick way to reconcile the figures on paper against what's being marketed.
• Every record — whatever it's called — is a snapshot as of a date, not a permanent guarantee. That discipline of noting "source + as-of date" travels with you across every state border.

Pro tips for buying outside your home state

1. Before you start shortlisting, search "[state name] + land records portal" and bookmark the two or three official sites you'll need (state revenue portal, sub-registrar/EC portal, municipal portal).
2. Ask a local advocate or your builder/society's documentation team to name the specific record types for that state early — don't assume your home-state vocabulary will be understood.
3. If a record is in a regional language you don't read, get a certified or professional translation rather than a rough paraphrase from an agent.
4. Note the "as-of" date on every record you pull, and re-pull anything more than a few weeks old before you sign.
5. Keep a simple personal glossary mapping your home-state terms to the target state's terms — it makes every subsequent conversation with sellers, lawyers, and lenders faster.

Common mistakes cross-state buyers make

• Assuming a document that doesn't exist by a familiar name doesn't exist at all, instead of asking what the local equivalent is called.
• Relying on an agent's verbal description of a record instead of pulling and reading the actual document from the official portal.
• Treating a same-day online printout in one state and a certified physical copy from another as equally authoritative without checking each state's own definition of what counts as an official copy.
• Ignoring update-cadence differences and treating an old record pull as still current.
• Not confirming whether the EC-equivalent document in that state also covers the specific years relevant to the transaction (EC periods often have to be requested for a range of years).

How DrawMagic helps you hold it all together

Reading ten different state portals in ten different formats is exactly the kind of literacy gap our evolving Buyer Intelligence workspace is built to close — bringing the facts you pull from whichever state portal applies, together with their source and as-of date, into one place, so you're not relying on memory or scattered screenshots when you compare properties across cities. It doesn't certify or guarantee anything about a record; it's a way to organise what you've already gathered and keep it dated. For the plain-language explanation of how DrawMagic uses information without overstepping into advice, see our responsible AI framing. And if you're just starting to think through what you want and where, our broader buyer intelligence hub walks through the whole first-time buying journey — including area concepts that stay constant across states, like the carpet area calculator.

The value of one framework, many portals

The mistake to avoid isn't state confusion itself — that's an inherent, structural feature of buying property in a federal country where land is a state subject. The mistake is treating each new state as a completely blank slate. Once you internalise the handful of record classes that exist everywhere (ownership/land record, encumbrance, municipal/tax record, registration record, building approvals), you can walk into any state's portal, however unfamiliar the name on the page, and know exactly what you're looking for and what it should tell you.

Key Takeaways

• Land and land revenue are State List subjects in India, so each state built and digitised its own records and portals independently — there's no single national format.
• The same underlying record class goes by very different names: 7/12 in Maharashtra and Gujarat, khata/RTC in Karnataka, khatauni in UP, khatian in West Bengal, jamabandi in Rajasthan, Dharani records in Telangana.
• Four record classes exist in some form in every state: the land/ownership record, the encumbrance record, the municipal/tax record, and the registration record.
• Regional-language issuance, differing update cadences, and different fee/process structures are real practical differences to plan for, not just naming quirks.
• Always note the source portal and the as-of date on any record you pull — records are point-in-time snapshots everywhere in India.
• Building approvals, RERA registration, and carpet-area definitions are consistent nationally even when land records diverge.
• The safest approach when buying outside your home state is to ask "which state-specific document answers this universal question" rather than searching for your home state's exact term.
• Our Buyer Intelligence workspace is built to bring facts from whichever state portal applies together with source and as-of date, for buyers navigating an unfamiliar state's records.