News · 5 October 2026 · 2 min read
Eleven questions to ask before you pay a token on land in Uttarakhand
A token is the moment a conversation becomes a transaction. Everything is easier to ask before it and harder after. These are the questions we put to a seller before we will list their land,
About the land itself
1. What is the khasra number? If this takes more than a phone call to answer, that tells you something on its own.
2. Whose name is on the khatauni today, and is that the person selling? Not the family, not the firm, not the person with the keys — the name in the record.
3. When did the current owner acquire it, and has that purchase been mutated? A sale deed is a transaction. Mutation is the state agreeing it happened.
4. Is there an encumbrance certificate, and for how many years? Ask for a long window. Loans against land are not visible from the roadside.
About what you can do with it
5. What is the recorded land use? Agricultural, residential, industrial. This is the answer that decides whether you are buying a building plot or a field.
6. If it needs conversion, has it been applied for — and can I see the paperwork? "It's a formality" is not paperwork.
7. Is the plot part of an approved layout? An approved layout means somebody with authority has already agreed the roads and the setbacks.
8. What can I build, and how much of it? Permissible coverage and floor area ratio turn a plot size into a house size. Find out before you design anything.
About getting to it and living on it
9. How do I reach the plot, and whose land does that route cross? Then: is that right of way recorded anywhere, or is it a habit? A plot you can own and cannot legally reach is not a plot.
10. Where does the water go in the monsoon? Walk it in July if you can. If you cannot, ask the neighbours — they will tell you, and they have no reason not to.
11. What is the electricity and water position, and who pays to bring it? The gap between "available nearby" and "connected" is sometimes several lakh and several months.
The one to ask your own advocate
Uttarakhand places limits on land purchase by buyers from outside the state, and those rules have been changed more than once recently. Do not take the current position from a seller, a broker or a blog — including this one. Ask a local advocate to put the present rule in writing before you pay anything, and ask the sub-registrar's office what they are registering today.
It costs very little and it is the difference between a deed that can be enforced and a deed that cannot.
And one for us
If you are buying through an agent, ask what they actually checked. On this site, a plot carries the verified badge only when one of our agents has stood on it and matched the papers above against the record. That is a statement about the file, not about the price — the price is still yours to negotiate.