How to Buy Property in Pakistan: A Step-by-Step Guide

Buying property in Pakistan is not difficult. It is just unforgiving.

Almost every story that ends badly — the plot sold twice, the flat with no completion plan, the "transfer" that never reached the revenue record — comes down to a step somebody skipped because they did not know it existed.

This guide walks through the whole thing in order, so you know what is coming before you hand over any money.

Before you start: become a filer

This is the single cheapest decision you will make, and almost nobody makes it in time.

When you buy property, the buyer pays an advance tax under section 236K of the Income Tax Ordinance. When the seller sells, they pay one under section 236C. What you pay depends on your status on the Active Taxpayer List (ATL) — and there are now three statuses, not two:

• Filer — on the ATL, lowest rate
• Late filer — filed, but after the deadline, higher rate
• Non-filer — highest rate by a wide margin

A non-filer can pay several times what a filer pays on exactly the same property. On a one-crore purchase that difference is not a rounding error — it is a car.

Getting onto the ATL takes weeks. The purchase can take days. If property is anywhere in your plans this year, sort your filer status out first. Doing it after you have signed is too late to help you.

Rates change in every federal budget, and the rules around these categories are still being revised. Check the current position on FBR's own site or with a tax practitioner before you sign anything — not from a blog, and not from this one.

Step 1 — Check that the seller actually owns it

Not that they say they own it. That the record says so.

For land and houses on revenue land, the document is the fard (record of rights, fard malkiat). In Punjab you can get one from an Arazi Record Centre or online through the Punjab Land Records Authority; the PLRA says a fard is issued in a day and costs roughly Rs 400–500. Sindh and KP have their own systems — ask locally.

For a plot in a housing society or development authority scheme, the fard will not exist. What matters there is the allotment letter and the society's own transfer record. Do not accept a photocopy. Go to the society office yourself and ask them to confirm the file is clean and not under any ban or dispute.

For a flat or newly built house, especially in Karachi, ask for the approved building plan and the completion plan as well as the title documents. A building without an approved completion plan can be very hard to register and even harder to sell later.

What you are looking for is boring agreement. The name on the fard or allotment letter, the name on the CNIC in front of you, and the name on the plan should all be the same person. If anyone is signing on someone else's behalf, you need to see the power of attorney and verify it — this is where a great many frauds live.

Step 2 — The bayana agreement

Bayana (earnest money, token) is the first money that changes hands. Put the terms in writing before you pay it, not after.

A workable bayana agreement states:

• The exact property — khasra or plot number, size, boundaries, scheme and phase. "The corner plot in Phase 6" is not a description
• The full agreed price, and the payment schedule with dates
• Who pays which tax and duty — assume nothing, write it down
• What happens if the buyer backs out, and what happens if the seller does
• A deadline by which the transfer must complete

Never pay bayana before you have seen the title documents. Once your money is with the seller, every piece of leverage you had is gone.

Step 3 — Taxes and duties

Four separate things are usually payable. They go to different places.

The seller also has to settle section 7E — tax on deemed income from property — before the registering authority will process the transfer. FBR has issued circulars setting out which sellers are exempt and what proof they must bring instead; overseas Pakistanis, armed forces allottees and some others are treated differently.

In Punjab, stamp duty is paid as an e-stamp: you calculate the amount, print a challan online and pay it at a designated bank branch, which issues the e-stamp paper. No separate trip to a stamp office is needed.

This guide deliberately does not print tax rates. They change with every budget, and in 2026 the categories themselves are under revision. Any article that quotes a figure is a few months away from being wrong. Get the current number from FBR or your lawyer on the day you transact.

Step 4 — Registration

This is where the sale deed is executed in front of the Sub-Registrar and entered into the record.

Taking Punjab as the example, because it is the most documented:

1. Get the fard — one day
2. Have the sale deed drafted — one day. PLRA publishes standard templates free on its website, and a lawyer or deed writer is not legally required, though most people in Lahore use one
3. Pay the taxes and duties and get the e-stamp — one day
4. Sub-Registrar — the deed gets a token and a unique number, photographs and thumb impressions are taken digitally, the fard and e-stamp are verified online. PLRA puts this stage at about fifteen days

Roughly eighteen days end to end, on PLRA's own estimate. Sindh and KP work differently and timelines vary; in Karachi much of the work is leasehold and sub-lease documentation rather than revenue-record land.

Bring original CNICs. Both parties and the witnesses need to be present.

Step 5 — Mutation (intiqal): the step people forget

This is the one that causes the most grief, and it is the one nobody explains.

Registration records the deed. Mutation moves the property into your name in the revenue record. Until the mutation is attested, the register still shows the seller as the owner — whatever your sale deed says.

The good news in Punjab is that this is now largely automatic: once the Sub-Registrar signs a registered deed, it is scanned and forwarded to the Assistant Director Land Records, and the mutation is attested without the parties having to attend again. The revenue record then updates online.

Do not take anyone's word that it happened. Check the record yourself — in person at an Arazi Record Centre or online — and keep the attested mutation with your deed. Years later, that is the document that proves the property is yours.

In a housing society, the equivalent step is the society's own transfer letter in your name. Collect it. Do not leave the office without it.

Step 6 — Possession and the loose ends

• Take physical possession and confirm the boundaries match the documents
• Get a no-dues certificate from the society for maintenance, development and utility charges, so you do not inherit the seller's arrears
• Transfer the electricity, gas and water connections into your name
• Keep everything — deed, mutation, e-stamp receipts, tax challans, transfer letter — together, in one place, in original

Red flags worth walking away from

• The seller will not give you the fard or allotment letter before taking bayana
• The person selling is not the person on the title, and the power of attorney cannot be verified
• The price is noticeably below the market and the seller is in a hurry
• A new building with no approved completion plan
• A society plot in a scheme with no approval from the relevant development authority
• Anyone who suggests the paperwork can be "managed later"

One honest word about this guide

Property law in Pakistan is provincial, tax law is federal, and both change often. What is written here is the shape of the process, not legal advice, and parts of it work differently in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad.

Before you transact, confirm the current rules with a lawyer and the current tax rates with FBR. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.

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