Checking a property title in Karachi before you pay

Almost every property dispute we see in Karachi could have been avoided by a week of verification before the money moved. The seller's file is not verification. It is the seller's file.

Start with the chain, not the last document

Ask for the documents that take the property from its original allotment or lease down to the person now offering to sell it. A single sale deed in the seller's name proves very little on its own; what you are testing is whether every link in the chain is valid and registered.

For a typical Karachi property that means some combination of:

• The original allotment or lease from the controlling authority
• Every intervening sale deed, gift or inheritance transfer
• Sub-lease documents where the land is leasehold
• The current property tax and utility record

Verify independently, not from the file you were given

Photocopies are not evidence. The checks that count are:

• A search at the office of the Sub-Registrar for the registered instruments affecting the property
• Confirmation from the controlling authority, whether the society, the cantonment board or the relevant development authority, that its record shows the seller as the holder and records no ban on transfer
• A no-objection or transfer clearance from that authority
• Physical inspection of the property, to see who is actually in possession

That last point is the one buyers skip. Someone living in the property who is not the seller is a fact you want to discover before payment, not after.

Registration is what makes a sale stick

Under the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 and the Registration Act, 1908, a sale of immovable property of any real value must be effected by a registered instrument. An unregistered agreement to sell is not worthless, and it can found a suit for specific performance, but it does not transfer title and it will struggle against a later registered transfer to a buyer who had no notice of it.

Where you are buying through a power of attorney rather than from the owner directly, treat that as a risk factor and verify the attorney document itself: whether it is registered, whether it is still in force, and whether the principal is alive.

Look for the encumbrance nobody mentions

Before you pay, establish whether the property is:

• Mortgaged or otherwise charged to a bank
• The subject of a pending suit or an injunction restraining transfer
• Inherited property where all the legal heirs have not joined in the sale
• Under an acquisition, demolition or regularisation notice

The fourth is common in parts of Karachi and does not appear in the seller's documents at all.

Structure the payment around the transfer

Money paid in advance against a promise of transfer is the single most common way buyers lose control of a transaction. Where possible, tie the payments to the steps: a documented earnest sum on the written agreement, the balance against execution and registration of the transfer in your name.

Put the agreement in writing, name the property precisely, state the total consideration, state the date for completion, and state what happens if either side fails to perform.

If it has already gone wrong

Where you have paid and the seller will not complete, the usual route is a suit for specific performance under the Specific Relief Act, 1877, coupled with an application to restrain the seller from transferring the property to anyone else while the suit is pending. That injunction is the urgent part. Once the property is sold on to a third party who claims to have bought without notice, your case becomes considerably harder.

Limitation applies. Do not wait to see whether the seller comes around.