# Khata transfer in India: a khata is not property title **TL;DR:** A khata is a municipal record that identifies who is liable to pay property tax on a piece of land or a building in Karnataka's cities. It is not a title document, and holding a khata in your name does not make you the owner. Khata transfer, khata registration, khata bifurcation, and khata amalgamation are four distinct administrative processes, and Bengaluru now runs all of them through the e-khata system rather than the old paper register. --- ## On this page - [What a khata actually is](#what-a-khata-actually-is) - [The statutory basis: Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act 1976](#the-statutory-basis-karnataka-municipal-corporations-act-1976) - [A khata versus B khata](#a-khata-versus-b-khata) - [The e-khata regime](#the-e-khata-regime) - [Documents a khata transfer requires](#documents-a-khata-transfer-requires) - [Khata transfer, registration, amalgamation, and bifurcation](#khata-transfer-registration-amalgamation-and-bifurcation) - [Khata versus mutation and the record of rights](#khata-versus-mutation-and-the-record-of-rights) - [The khata transfer process](#the-khata-transfer-process) - [The same principle beyond Karnataka](#the-same-principle-beyond-karnataka) - [What the courts have said](#what-the-courts-have-said) - [What a buyer should check, in order](#what-a-buyer-should-check-in-order) - [Frequently asked questions](#frequently-asked-questions) --- ## What a khata actually is A khata is an entry in a municipal corporation's property records that names the person responsible for paying property tax on a specific plot or building, along with the property's size, location, and built-up details. In Bengaluru, that corporation was the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, commonly known as BBMP. The khata identifies the assessee, not the owner. The two often happen to be the same person, which is exactly why the confusion persists. When they are not the same person, the khata still names whoever the municipal record currently holds liable for the tax. Two documents usually travel under the "khata" label. A khata certificate confirms that a property is entered in the corporation's assessment register under a given name. A khata extract sets out the recorded details of the property, including dimensions, usage, and the assessed value on which tax is computed. Neither certifies a chain of ownership. Neither has been examined against a mother deed, an encumbrance certificate, or a survey record before it is issued. The municipal clerk who processes a khata transfer checks that the applicant has paid tax and produced a registered transfer document; the clerk does not adjudicate whether the seller who executed that document actually held good title to sell. This distinction matters because a khata does real, practical work even though it is not proof of ownership. You need a khata to get a building plan sanctioned, to obtain electricity and water connections in your name, to apply for a trade licence at that address, and to pay property tax without your payment bouncing back as unidentified. Banks routinely ask for a khata before sanctioning a home loan, not because it proves title, but because it is one more document that corroborates the applicant's claim to possession and liability. A lender's own [property title verification](/blog/property-title-verification-encumbrance-mutation-checklist) still has to look past the khata to the registered deed and the chain behind it. The confusion between khata and title is not accidental. For decades a khata transfer followed a sale deed as a matter of routine, and most buyers never had reason to separate the two ideas. That habit is expensive when it breaks down, typically when a property changes hands through an unregistered agreement, an inheritance that was never formally settled, or a builder who obtained a khata for an entire layout before individual buyers held registered sale deeds for their specific units. In each of those situations, a person can hold a khata in their name while someone else holds better title, or a person can hold clean title while the khata still sits with a previous owner or even a deceased one. Where BBMP's own counter refuses to hand over the current khata extract or assessment history for a property you do not yet own, a request under the [Right to Information Act](/blog/how-to-file-rti) directed at the ward office is a legitimate route to the same record, since BBMP is a public authority and khata assessment data is not exempt information. --- ## The statutory basis: Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act 1976 BBMP's authority to levy and collect property tax, and to maintain the records that support that levy, comes from the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976. The word "khata" itself is BBMP's administrative shorthand rather than a term defined in the Act. What the Act actually creates is a property tax assessment system, and the khata is the record BBMP keeps to run it. [Section 108](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/77956432/) of the Act requires a property tax to be levied every year on buildings and vacant lands within the city, unless the property is exempt. [Section 109](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/66917088/) sets out how that tax is assessed, tying the taxable capital value of a building or a vacant plot to the market value guidance published under the Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957, subject to a prescribed discount and depreciation. [Section 111](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/22654867/) makes the property tax a first charge on the building or land itself, ahead of most other claims, which is why an unpaid tax bill against a property follows the property rather than the person who incurred it. [Section 114](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/108176940/) is the provision that governs a change of name on the record after a sale, gift, inheritance, or other transfer of title. It requires both the outgoing and incoming party, the transferor and the transferee, to give notice of the transfer to the Commissioner within three months of the transfer instrument being executed or registered. Where the previous holder has died, the heir has up to a year from the date of death to give that notice. Once the notice is given and verified, the transferee's name is entered in the property tax register, which is what most people mean when they say a khata has been "transferred." Section 114 also makes clear what a person loses by skipping this step: anyone who transfers a property without giving the required notice remains liable for the tax on it until either the notice is given or the transfer is recorded in the corporation's registers, regardless of who now actually owns or occupies the property. [Section 114A](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/122434052/), inserted in 1995, gives the Commissioner a three-year window to reopen and reverse a khata transfer if it later turns out the transfer was recorded on the strength of fraud, misrepresentation, suppression of material facts, or incomplete information, provided the affected person gets a hearing first. That power exists precisely because a khata entry, unlike a registered sale deed, is an administrative record that the same authority which created it can also unwind. Nowhere in these provisions does the Act say that entering a name in the property tax register creates, transfers, or confirms ownership. The scheme is about tax liability and its first charge on the property, not about resolving who holds title. That is worth sitting with, because it is the entire argument of this article compressed into one statutory fact. --- ## A khata versus B khata Bengaluru has run two parallel khata registers for years, and the difference between them decides whether a property can even apply for a building plan sanction or a fresh loan. An A khata is issued for a property that BBMP recognises as fully compliant: the layout is approved, the building plan is sanctioned, and the property tax has been paid regularly with no irregularity in the underlying documentation reaching back to the layout approval. Properties on an A khata can apply for building plan sanction, get occupancy certificates processed, and are generally treated by banks as eligible for home loans without extra conditions attached. A B khata, by contrast, is BBMP's way of collecting tax from properties that do not meet those conditions, most often because the layout was never formally approved, the property sits on land that was agricultural before conversion formalities were completed, or the construction departs from the sanctioned plan. A B khata lets BBMP tax the property so it is not simply outside the revenue net, but it does not carry the same administrative privileges as an A khata. Properties on a B khata typically cannot get a building plan sanctioned, and many banks either decline to finance them or finance them only with conditions, because the underlying irregularity that put the property on the B register in the first place is unresolved. The gap between the two registers is administrative status, not ownership. A B khata property can have a perfectly clean chain of title behind it, just as an A khata property can be sitting on a defective one, because neither register was ever built to answer the ownership question. | Feature | A khata | B khata | |---|---|---| | Layout and plan approval | ✓ Fully approved | ✗ Irregular or unapproved | | Building plan sanction eligible | ✓ Yes | ✗ Generally no | | Bank loan eligibility | ✓ Usually straightforward | ✗ Restricted or conditional | | Proof of ownership | ✗ No, it is a tax record | ✗ No, it is a tax record | | Can convert to the other register | Can be downgraded on irregularity | Can be upgraded once conditions are regularised | Karnataka has periodically opened schemes letting B khata holders regularise and move to the A register, most recently under the Akrama-Sakrama framework. Whether a specific property qualifies is a question for BBMP's current notification rather than a fixed rule, since eligibility and fees have changed across rounds. A buyer looking at an under-construction apartment on a B khata layout should also pull the project's registration under the [RERA Act](/blog/rera-act-homebuyers), a separate protection the khata register cannot offer. --- ## The e-khata regime Bengaluru's khata system has moved from a paper-based register to an electronic one, called e-khata, issued through the state government's [e-Aasthi portal](https://bbmpeaasthi.karnataka.gov.in/). The portal is run under the "GBA eKhata" branding, which itself reflects a wider administrative change: Karnataka has restructured Bengaluru's civic governance into the Greater Bengaluru Authority framework, splitting what was previously BBMP's single sprawling jurisdiction across multiple city corporations operating under that authority. [BBMP's own website](https://bbmp.gov.in) now identifies itself as the Greater Bengaluru Authority rather than the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, which is worth knowing if you are hunting for a "BBMP" office and finding GBA branding instead. Litigation before Bengaluru's civil courts gives a sense of how the paper-to-electronic transition has played out on the ground. In a suit filed before the City Civil Court at Bengaluru, one party's pleadings recorded a BBMP show cause notice dated 20 July 2024, contending that with e-khata now mandatory, the earlier paper-based khata for that property had become legally invalid. That is one litigant's position in one ongoing dispute, not a blanket ruling, but it reflects the practical reality that the civic authority has been treating e-khata as the operative record going forward rather than a parallel convenience. The e-khata's structure does not change the underlying legal character of the document. It is faster to issue, harder to forge than a paper register entry, and easier to cross-check against tax payment history, but it remains a record of who is liable to pay tax on a property, generated on the strength of whatever transfer documents and prior khata history the applicant submits. Digitising a tax record does not turn it into a title record. If anything, the shift to e-khata makes the distinction more visible, because the portal explicitly separates the property tax module from any ownership adjudication, and BBMP has no statutory mechanism, digital or paper, to conclusively determine title through the khata process. --- ## Documents a khata transfer requires The exact document list BBMP asks for depends on how the transfer arises, but the recurring items are these: - The registered sale deed, gift deed, or partition deed that effected the transfer, or a probate, letters of administration, or legal heir certificate where the transfer follows a death. - The existing khata certificate and khata extract in the transferor's name. - The latest property tax paid receipts, showing no arrears against the property. - An encumbrance certificate covering the period since the last registered transaction. - A copy of the sanctioned building plan, where one exists. - Identity and address proof of the applicant, and in most cases an application form along with an affidavit or indemnity bond, formatted along the lines set out in a standard [affidavit format](/blog/affidavit-format-india), declaring that the information supplied is correct. - The BBMP-prescribed application fee. Where the property has passed through inheritance rather than a sale, the applicant typically needs a succession certificate, a legal heir certificate, or probate of a will, and the difference between those three documents is not cosmetic. A [succession certificate, probate, and legal heir certificate](/blog/succession-certificate-vs-probate-vs-legal-heir-certificate) each serve a distinct legal purpose, and BBMP's counter staff will ask for whichever one is appropriate to how the deceased person's estate passed, whether under a registered [will](/blog/how-to-make-a-will-india) or under intestate succession. Where the property was acquired by a woman in her own name, including gifts received at marriage, the same rule against treating a khata as title applies with equal force, and the underlying ownership question is answered by the property law explained in a guide to [streedhan and women's property rights](/blog/streedhan-women-property-rights-divorce), not by whoever the khata happens to name. Where someone other than the owner is filing the application, a registered [power of attorney](/blog/power-of-attorney-india) authorising that person to act is usually required, and BBMP will generally not accept an unregistered or unstamped power of attorney for this purpose. --- ## Khata transfer, registration, amalgamation, and bifurcation BBMP's khata system covers four operations that are easy to confuse because all four end with a change to the property tax register, but each answers a different starting problem. Khata transfer is the most common of the four. It updates the name on an existing khata entry after a sale, gift, or inheritance, without changing the physical extent or the boundaries of the property that the khata describes. This is the process Section 114 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act governs directly, and it is what most people mean when they use the word "khata transfer" loosely to cover the whole subject. Khata registration, by contrast, is what happens when a property is entering BBMP's assessment records for the first time, typically a newly constructed building, a plot carved out of a larger approved layout, or land that has recently been brought within municipal limits and did not previously have a khata at all. There is no existing entry to update; BBMP is creating one. Khata bifurcation splits a single khata into two or more separate khata entries, which becomes necessary when a larger plot or building is divided among co-owners after a partition, or when a landowner sells off part of a larger holding while retaining the rest. Each resulting portion needs its own khata, its own tax assessment, and its own extract, because BBMP's tax roll cannot meaningfully tax two different owners under one undivided entry. A family dividing inherited property through a registered partition deed will typically need bifurcation immediately afterward, and the underlying partition itself should be checked against the coparcenary rules explained in a guide to [filing a partition suit and coparcener rights](/blog/how-to-file-partition-suit-coparcener-rights) if the division was contested rather than by consent. Where a daughter's share in ancestral property is part of what is being bifurcated, the applicable coparcenary rules are set out in a separate guide to [daughters' ancestral property rights](/blog/daughters-ancestral-property-rights), and a bifurcated khata entry should match whatever share that law actually gives her, not whatever the family privately agreed to record. Khata amalgamation runs the opposite direction. It combines two or more adjoining khata entries, usually held by the same person, into a single khata, which is the step a buyer takes after acquiring two neighbouring plots and wanting to treat them as one assessed unit for tax and future construction purposes. None of these four processes touches the question of who holds valid title to the underlying land. A bifurcation carried out on the strength of a partition deed that is itself under challenge produces two khata entries that are just as vulnerable as the single entry was before the split. An amalgamation combines tax liability, not ownership claims, and if one of the two original plots had a title defect, that defect survives the merger into the combined entry. --- ## Khata versus mutation and the record of rights Outside Bengaluru's municipal limits, in Karnataka's village and panchayat areas, the equivalent process is called mutation, and the underlying record is the Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops document, commonly abbreviated RTC and accessed through Karnataka's [Bhoomi land records portal](https://landrecords.karnataka.gov.in/). The RTC records who cultivates or holds agricultural land, the extent and classification of that land, and the revenue payable on it. Mutation is the act of updating the RTC to reflect a new holder's name after a transfer. The relationship between khata and mutation is not a rename of the same idea across urban and rural boundaries. They sit under different statutory schemes, khata under the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act for cities and municipal areas, and mutation of the RTC under Karnataka's land revenue law for village and panchayat land, and the transition from agricultural RTC land to a municipal khata itself requires a separate conversion process before urban development can proceed on it. A plot that is being developed at the edge of an expanding city frequently needs to pass through land conversion and only then becomes eligible for its first khata registration, precisely because khata and RTC describe different categories of land under different legal regimes. What khata and mutation share is the underlying legal character described earlier in this article: both are fiscal records maintained for tax and revenue administration, and neither is a title document. A buyer checking a rural or peri-urban property should pull the current RTC just as carefully as an urban buyer pulls the khata, confirm the seller's name appears as the recorded holder, and confirm the extent and survey number match the sale deed being relied upon, exactly as set out in the broader [property title verification checklist](/blog/property-title-verification-encumbrance-mutation-checklist) that covers documents beyond khata and mutation alone. --- ## The khata transfer process The decision of which record to update, and what happens to it afterward, follows the same fork regardless of whether the property sits inside Bengaluru's municipal limits or in a village outside it. ```mermaid flowchart TD A[Sale, gift, partition, or inheritance] --> B{Property inside BBMP or GBA limits?} B -->|Yes, urban| C[Apply for khata transfer or registration] B -->|No, village or panchayat| D[Apply for mutation of the RTC] C --> E[Submit deed, prior khata, tax receipts, EC, affidavit] D --> F[Submit deed, prior RTC entry, revenue receipts] E --> G[BBMP verifies documents and tax dues] F --> H[Revenue officer verifies documents] G --> I[New khata or e-khata issued in transferee name] H --> J[Mutation entry updated in RTC] I --> K[Tax liability now recorded against transferee] J --> K K --> L[Title itself remains governed by the registered deed and chain of title, not by this record] ``` --- ## The same principle beyond Karnataka Karnataka's khata is one name for a pattern that repeats across India under different labels. Tamil Nadu calls its equivalent revenue record the patta, issued under the state's land revenue administration and recording who holds land for the purpose of revenue and, in practice, as strong circumstantial evidence of possession. Maharashtra runs the 7/12 extract for rural land and a property card for urban property. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh use the pahani, now largely administered through Telangana's Dharani portal. Punjab and Haryana use the jamabandi. Municipal corporations in north Indian cities maintain their own property tax mutation registers under their respective municipal Acts, structured very much like BBMP's khata system, updating the name against which house tax is billed after a sale or inheritance is reported. The general principle that runs underneath all of these names is the same one Section 114 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act embodies for Bengaluru: a municipal or revenue record follows a change of title that has already happened somewhere else, typically in a registered instrument or a court order, and it never independently creates that change. The record is downstream of title, not the source of it. An officer maintaining a patta, a 7/12 extract, a jamabandi, or a khata is doing fiscal bookkeeping on the strength of documents presented, not adjudicating a property dispute, and none of these officers has the power to conclusively settle a contested question of ownership. That question belongs to a civil court, working from the registered chain of [primary legal sources](/blog/primary-vs-secondary-legal-sources) rather than from a tax register. --- ## What the courts have said The Supreme Court has stated this principle repeatedly and in near-identical language across a line of decisions. In [Jitendra Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh, Special Leave Petition (C) No. 13146/2021](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/104309066/), decided on 6 September 2021 by a bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Aniruddha Bose, the Court dismissed a petition arising from a dispute over a mutation entry made in favour of a claimant under a disputed will, and held that "as per the settled proposition of law, mutation entry does not confer any right, title or interest in favour of the person and the mutation entry in the revenue record is only for the fiscal purpose." The Court traced that proposition back through its own precedent, citing Balwant Singh v. Daulat Singh, (1997) 7 SCC 137, for the holding that mutation of property in revenue records neither creates nor extinguishes title to the property, nor carries any presumptive value on title, because such entries are relevant only for collecting land revenue. It also cited Suraj Bhan v. Financial Commissioner, (2007) 6 SCC 186, for the parallel holding that an entry in revenue records does not confer title on the person whose name appears in the record of rights. That reasoning is written for mutation entries and revenue records generally, and it applies with equal force to a khata, which is the same category of fiscal record under a different name and a different statute. A Bengaluru civil court applied exactly that logic to an e-khata directly. In [Devi v. Chander](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/151996216/), a judgment of the Bangalore District Court dated 7 January 2026, the trial judge weighed a defendant's reliance on an e-khata, tax paid receipts, and connected proceedings, and held that "these documents, at best, indicate municipal entries and collateral proceedings, but do not conclusively establish title, particularly when the root of title and extent conveyed are in dispute." A district court decision does not bind other courts the way a Supreme Court ruling does, but it shows a Bengaluru court applying the Supreme Court's settled principle to the specific document this article is about, in a case decided in 2026. Trial court rulings on title disputes like this one rarely get the same visibility as High Court and Supreme Court judgments, which is why a lawyer running property litigation in Karnataka benefits from a deliberate [district court research workflow](/blog/district-court-lawyer-research-workflow) rather than relying only on reported case law. Verifying whether a lower court ruling like Devi v. Chander has since been appealed, or whether a specific line of authority on mutation and khata has been narrowed or distinguished, is exactly the kind of check that should happen before you rely on it in a live dispute. A [good law check](/blog/good-law-checking) run against the current citator status of any judgment you plan to cite catches an appeal or a later Supreme Court clarification that a manual read of the headnote would miss, and citing the ruling correctly afterward is its own separate step, covered in a guide to [how to cite Indian judgments](/blog/how-to-cite-indian-judgments). Pulling this line of authority by hand, across a Supreme Court order, two older SCC-reported judgments, and a 2026 district court decision, is the kind of chase [AI-assisted legal research in India](/blog/ai-legal-research-india) is meant to shorten without skipping the verification step. --- ## What a buyer should check, in order A khata transfer in your name is a step you take after confirming title, not a substitute for confirming it. In practical order: 1. Pull the mother deed and trace the chain of title back at least thirty years, confirming each transfer in the chain was validly executed and, where required, registered. Where a name in that chain shows up in reported litigation, a search tool that can [find similar judgments](https://niyam.ai) across courts by party name and property description will surface a prior title dispute faster than manually paging through cause lists. 2. Get a fresh encumbrance certificate from the Sub-Registrar's office covering the entire period since the last registered transaction, and read it for pending loans, court attachments, or unresolved prior sale agreements. 3. Check the survey number, extent, and boundaries in the sale deed against the approved layout plan and, separately, against the khata extract, because a mismatch between these documents is one of the most common ways a title defect surfaces. 4. Confirm whether the property carries an A khata or a B khata, since a B khata signals an unresolved regularisation issue that can block a building plan sanction or a loan later even if the title itself is clean. 5. Verify the current khata holder's name matches the seller's name on the sale deed, and if it does not, ask why, because an un-transferred khata from a previous transaction is a sign the seller's own chain has a gap. 6. Check property tax payment history for arrears, since Section 111 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act makes unpaid tax a first charge on the property that follows it regardless of who currently occupies it. 7. Only after all of the above, apply for the khata transfer in your own name, treating it as the last administrative step rather than the proof you were looking for. | Document | What it proves | What it does not prove | |---|---|---| | Khata certificate or e-khata | Who is currently liable to pay property tax | ✗ Ownership or a valid chain of title | | Registered sale deed | ✓ That a transaction of sale was executed and recorded | Whether the seller in that deed held good title to sell | | Encumbrance certificate | ✓ Registered charges and transactions during the period searched | ✗ Unregistered claims, pending litigation not yet noted, or disputes outside the search period | | Record of Rights or RTC | Who is recorded as cultivating or holding rural land, for revenue purposes | ✗ Conclusive ownership, on the same basis as a khata | Legal research built around the deed and the case law behind it, rather than around the municipal record, is what actually answers the ownership question a khata cannot. A citator that flags whether a cited judgment on title, mutation, or khata has since been overruled or distinguished is the difference between relying on a settled Supreme Court line and unknowingly relying on a position the courts have since moved away from, which is the specific gap [Niyam](https://niyam.ai) is built to close for a lawyer running this kind of due diligence. --- ## Frequently asked questions ### Is khata proof of ownership in Karnataka? No. A khata is a municipal record identifying who is liable to pay property tax on a property. It is issued by BBMP or the relevant city corporation on the strength of documents an applicant submits, without the municipal authority adjudicating whether those documents establish valid title. Ownership is established by a registered sale deed and the unbroken chain of title behind it, not by the khata. ### What is the difference between A khata and B khata? An A khata is issued for properties with an approved layout and a sanctioned building plan, and it is eligible for further building plan sanctions and generally accepted by banks for loans. A B khata is issued for properties with an irregularity, commonly an unapproved layout or unconverted agricultural land, and it does not carry the same administrative privileges until the irregularity is regularised. ### Can I sell a property that only has a B khata? Yes, a B khata property can be sold through a registered sale deed like any other property, because the sale itself depends on valid title, not on which khata register the property sits in. A buyer should expect financing difficulty and should factor in the cost and uncertainty of eventual regularisation before agreeing on price. ### How is khata transfer different from khata registration? Khata transfer updates the name on an existing khata entry after a sale, gift, or inheritance. Khata registration creates a brand-new khata entry for a property that has never had one before, typically a newly constructed building or a plot recently converted from agricultural to non-agricultural use. ### What is khata bifurcation? Khata bifurcation splits a single khata entry into two or more separate entries when a property is physically divided among different owners, most commonly after a partition among family members or a partial sale of a larger plot. Each resulting portion then carries its own khata and its own property tax assessment. ### What is khata amalgamation? Khata amalgamation is the reverse of bifurcation. It merges two or more adjoining khata entries, usually held by the same person, into a single combined khata, which simplifies tax payment and is generally a precondition for developing the combined plot as one unit. ### What documents are needed for khata transfer in Bengaluru? The core set includes the registered sale deed, gift deed, or succession document that effected the transfer, the existing khata certificate and extract, the latest property tax receipts, an encumbrance certificate, the sanctioned building plan where applicable, identity proof, and a prescribed application form and affidavit. The exact list varies by how the transfer arose. ### What is e-khata and how is it different from a paper khata? E-khata is the electronic version of the khata record, issued through Karnataka's e-Aasthi portal rather than a paper register maintained at a BBMP ward office. It carries the same legal character as the earlier paper khata, a record of tax liability, but is faster to issue and easier to verify. Karnataka's civic authorities have been treating e-khata as the operative record for property transactions going forward. ### Is BBMP still the authority that issues khata in Bengaluru? BBMP's own website now identifies the civic body as the Greater Bengaluru Authority, reflecting Karnataka's restructuring of Bengaluru's municipal governance into multiple city corporations operating under that authority. The e-khata portal for the city is branded accordingly. Anyone dealing with a Bengaluru property should expect to encounter this newer branding alongside references to the older BBMP name. ### What is the difference between khata and mutation? Khata is the property tax record maintained for land and buildings inside municipal limits under the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act. Mutation is the equivalent process for agricultural land in village and panchayat areas, updating the Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops document under Karnataka's land revenue law. Both serve a fiscal purpose and neither is proof of title. ### Does the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act use the word khata? No. The Act establishes a property tax assessment and collection scheme under Sections 108, 109, 111, 114, and 114A, and BBMP administratively calls the resulting register a khata. The term is BBMP's own usage rather than defined statutory language. ### Can BBMP cancel a khata after it has been transferred? Yes. Section 114A of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act lets the Commissioner reopen a khata transfer within three years of it being recorded if the transfer was obtained through fraud, misrepresentation, suppression of facts, or false or incomplete information, provided the affected person is given a hearing before any order is passed. ### What happens if a seller never transferred the khata into their own name? Section 114 makes both the outgoing and incoming party responsible for giving notice of a transfer, and a person who sells without giving notice remains liable for the property tax on it until the notice is given or the transfer is recorded. Practically, a buyer purchasing from someone whose own khata was never updated should treat that gap as a signal to trace the full chain of title carefully before proceeding. ### Is a B khata property eligible for a home loan? Most banks either decline to finance B khata properties or finance them only with additional conditions, because the underlying irregularity, typically an unapproved layout, creates risk for the lender independent of the borrower's creditworthiness. Some lenders will finance regularisation costs as part of the loan where the property is close to conversion eligibility, but this varies by lender and by property. ### How does khata relate to patta in Tamil Nadu? Patta and khata serve a comparable function under different state laws. Patta in Tamil Nadu is a revenue record recording who holds land, administered under Tamil Nadu's land revenue framework, and it carries somewhat stronger evidentiary weight in practice than a khata because of how Tamil Nadu's patta transfer process is structured. Neither document is a conclusive title deed under the law that applies to it. ### What is the strongest evidence of ownership if khata is not it? A registered sale, gift, or partition deed executed by someone who themselves held valid title, supported by an unbroken chain of title reaching back at least thirty years and a clean encumbrance certificate for that period, is the core evidence of ownership. A [gift deed, sale deed, and will](/blog/gift-deed-vs-sale-deed-vs-will) each transfer title differently, and identifying which instrument actually created the seller's title is the starting point of any serious verification. ### Can adverse possession override a khata dispute? Adverse possession is a separate legal claim to title based on long, open, and hostile possession of land, and it operates independently of whichever khata or tax record exists for the property during that period. A khata entry in someone else's name during the possession period does not by itself defeat an adverse possession claim, and the reverse is also true, as explained in a guide to [adverse possession claims in India](/blog/adverse-possession-india-claim-land).