Check These Documents Before You Buy Property in Pakistan

Most people who lose money on property in Pakistan did not miss a complicated legal point. They accepted a photocopy.

The seller produced a document, it looked official, and nobody checked it against the record it was supposedly copied from. Everything after that followed.

This guide is the checking. It is longer than the buying guide on purpose — because this is the part that actually protects you.

The one rule everything else hangs on

Get every document yourself, from the office that issues it. Never from the seller.

A fard, an allotment letter, an approved plan — all of them are easy to forge and impossible to tell apart from the real thing by eye. The only version worth anything is the one you obtained, or watched being obtained, from the issuing authority.

If a seller resists you pulling your own copy of the record — for any reason, however reasonable it sounds — that is the answer. Stop there.

First: know which kind of property you are buying

Pakistan does not have one property system. It has three, and they produce completely different paperwork. Checking the wrong documents is as bad as checking none.

Work out which one you are in before you start asking for papers.

If it is revenue land: how to read a fard

The fard (fard malkiat, record of rights) is an extract from the jamabandi. It is the single most important document, and almost nobody reads it properly.

The numbers:

• Khewat — the ownership number, identifying an owner or set of co-owners
• Khatuni — the cultivation or possession number, a subdivision of the khewat
• Khasra — the plot number. This is the one that stays put. Khewat and khatuni numbers get reorganised between settlements; the khasra is your anchor. Match it to the land you are standing on.

The share column matters when there are several owners. A seller with a one-fourth share cannot sell you the whole khewat, however confidently they talk.

And then the column everybody skips:

Read the remarks column — the kaifiat — line by line.

Every mutation, every sale, every mortgage (rehan), every court order and every charge on the land is noted there. It is the property's history, written in the margin. If there is a problem, this is where it is sitting, and it is sitting in plain sight.

Then check the arithmetic. The areas should add up — across the khatunis, and at the foot of the khewat. They often do not, and the gap is usually where the dispute is.

A fard is not proof of ownership

This is worth stating plainly, because a great many people believe otherwise.

Ownership passes through a registered sale deed, and then through mutation. The fard reflects that chain — it does not replace it. A seller waving a fard has shown you what the record currently says, not that they are entitled to sell.

Follow the chain backwards

Do not stop at the current owner. Ask how the property reached them.

The chain of title — the sequence of earlier deeds and mutations, sometimes called the mother deed — tells you whether every previous transfer was clean. One broken link anywhere in that chain can unravel your purchase years later.

Look for: a mutation that was never attested, an inheritance divided among heirs where not every heir signed, a gift deed that appeared suddenly, a transfer during a period when the land was under a court order.

If the original of any earlier deed is missing, insist on a certified copy from the registrar. "It was lost" is not a document.

If it is a society or authority plot

Here the fard usually does not exist. Two separate things need checking, and people normally only do the first.

One — is this plot clean? Take the allotment letter and the transfer records to the society's own office and have them confirmed in person. Ask specifically whether the file is under any ban, dispute or hold.

Two — is the scheme itself legal?

This is the question that destroys people, because the plot papers can be perfectly in order in a scheme that was never approved.

Development authorities publish lists of unapproved schemes and act against them. CDA has declared dozens of housing and agro-farming schemes in Islamabad illegal after survey and inspection, and openly warns the public not to invest in them. LDA, RDA, SBCA and their counterparts do the same in their own areas.

Check the authority directly — CDA's Directorate of Housing Societies for Islamabad, LDA for Lahore, RDA for Rawalpindi — using the contact details on that authority's own current website, not a number someone forwarded you.

"Approval under process" means not approved. It is marketing language. Treat it exactly as you would treat "no approval", because legally that is what it is.

If it is a flat or a newly built house

In Karachi, the Sindh Building Control Authority is where this gets settled.

Ask the developer for the approval or NOC number, the registered project name, the plot number and the developer's registered company name — then check them against SBCA's own records, online or at its office. Brochures, screenshots and WhatsApp forwards are not records.

Everything must match. Project name, plot details, developer name, approval number. A small mismatch in spelling or location is not a clerical slip; it is often the whole story.

Also confirm:

• The approval is active, not expired or cancelled
• There is a completion certificate for a finished or nearly finished building — this is what says the thing that got built matches the thing that was approved
• The building does not appear in the authority's public notices about illegal or unsafe construction

Walk away if: the project is not in the official records; the seller is vague about the NOC number; utility connections are "provisional"; or you are asked to pay outside formal banking channels.

Encumbrances: what is already owed on this property

A property can be sold to you while still carrying somebody else's debt.

• Mortgages and charges appear in the fard's remarks column
• For registered property, ask for a non-encumbrance certificate from the registrar, confirming no outstanding mortgage or loan against it
• If there has been a bank loan, see the bank's clearance that it is settled
• Ask the seller directly, in writing, whether the property is subject to any pending litigation — and check the remarks column against the answer

Dues nobody mentions until after you have paid

• Property tax receipts — current, with no arrears
• Society dues — maintenance, development and service charges, cleared, with a no-dues certificate in your hand
• Utility bills — electricity, gas and water, all settled before transfer

These are small amounts that become your problem the moment you sign.

Power of attorney: where the serious fraud lives

If the person selling is not the person named on the title, stop and slow down.

A power of attorney can be forged. It can be genuine but revoked. It can be genuine and unrevoked but granted by someone who has since died, which ends it. It can be general when the sale needs a specific one.

Verify it at the office where it was registered. Then, if there is any way to do it, deal with the owner directly — in person, or on a video call where you can see them holding their CNIC.

This is not an insult to the agent or the attorney holder. It is the single most common way large sums disappear in Pakistani property, and anyone acting honestly will understand why you are asking.

The checklist

One honest word

Procedures, offices and online systems differ between Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad, and they change. Nothing here is legal advice. It is the set of questions worth asking.

For anything you are about to pay for, have a lawyer who practises in that district do the verification. A few thousand rupees of legal fee against the price of a plot is not an expense worth saving.

On PakGharana, every listing is reviewed by hand before it goes live, and agents are verified before they can post — but no portal can verify your title for you. That part is yours. Browse properties · Find a verified agent