Khata and property tax mutation after registration: why the paperwork decides your resale

Rules and rates as of 12 October 2026.

Registration day feels like the finish line. The sale deed is signed, the stamp duty is paid, the Sub-Registrar's office scans your thumb and the deed is yours. But in both Bengaluru and Pune, the city's own records still show the previous owner until someone asks the municipal corporation to change them. That gap is easy to ignore while you live in the flat. It becomes expensive the day you try to sell it, rent it out formally or borrow against it.

Three different records, three different jobs

It helps to separate what each paper actually proves. The registered sale deed is the document that transfers ownership. The municipal record (called a khata in Bengaluru and the property tax assessment in Pune) is the corporation's list of who pays tax on the property. Your property tax receipts show whether that tax has been paid.

The municipal record is not a title document, and courts have said so repeatedly. In Jitendra Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh (6 September 2021), the Supreme Court restated that a mutation entry "does not confer any right, title or interest" and is "only for the fiscal purpose". That case was about revenue (land) records, but the logic is the same for a municipal tax entry: updating it does not make you the owner, and failing to update it does not take ownership away.

So why does it matter? Because the people you deal with next, especially a buyer's lawyer and a buyer's bank, read the municipal record as a consistency check. If the deed says you own the flat but the tax record, the bills and the receipts still carry the name of the person who sold it to you, the paperwork tells two different stories. A cautious lender will usually ask for that to be sorted out before releasing a loan.

Bengaluru: what the khata is in law

Bengaluru's civic administration now runs under the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 (Karnataka Act 36 of 2025). The Act defines a khata as "a record of an immovable property maintained in the property tax register by the City Corporation", and a khatadar as the person in whose name that record stands, who is legally responsible for paying the property tax.

Two other provisions are worth knowing by name. Section 149 is headed "Obligation of transferor and transferee to give notice of transfer", so the duty to tell the corporation about a sale is written into the statute and sits on both buyer and seller. Section 155 is headed "Property tax a first charge on property and movables", which means unpaid tax follows the property rather than the person who ran it up. We could read the headings in the official text but not the full operative wording of these two sections, so check the exact deadline and penalty with your lawyer.

The city has also moved its khata records online as an electronic khata (e-khata) on the BBMP e-Aasthi portal. The portal blocks automated readers, so we have not quoted its current steps, documents or fees here. Look them up on the portal itself.

Pune: the property tax record and the owner-occupier deduction

In Pune the equivalent step is a transfer of name in the Pune Municipal Corporation's property tax records, done after the sale is registered. There is one Pune-specific reason to get it done promptly. The Maharashtra Municipal Corporation of the City of Pune Taxation (Enactment and Amendment of Taxation Rules with retrospective effect and Validation) Act, 2023 sets the deduction from annual rent used to work out a property's rateable value. From 1 April 2023 the general deduction is 10% of annual rent. Where a building is "occupied by the owner exclusively for his residential purpose", 40% of the annual rent is deducted, and only one such home per owner qualifies.

On an annual rent of ₹1,20,000 as assessed by the corporation, that is a rateable value of ₹1,08,000 at 10% (₹1,20,000 × 0.90), or ₹72,000 at 40% (₹1,20,000 × 0.60). The tax is calculated on the rateable value. Because the deduction depends on the owner living there, it is hard to claim while the corporation's record still names someone else. We could not read PMC's own tax rates or name-transfer fee from its portal, so we have not turned this into a rupee tax bill.

Side by side

City	Document	Issuing body	What it proves	Typical trigger
Both	Registered sale deed	Sub-Registrar (state registration department)	Transfer of ownership	Sale, gift or other registered transfer
Bengaluru	Khata / e-khata	City Corporation under the Greater Bengaluru Authority	Entry in the property tax register; the khatadar owes the tax	Notice of transfer after registration (s.149, GBG Act)
Pune	Property tax record in the owner's name	Pune Municipal Corporation, property tax department	Who the corporation assesses; whether the 40% owner-occupier deduction can apply	Name-transfer application after registration
Both	Property tax receipts	The municipal corporation	Tax paid up to date; no arrears charged on the property	Every tax year

Worked example: what a three-month delay can cost

Illustrative figures. They are not any bank's quote. A Bengaluru owner agrees to sell a flat for ₹90 lakh. They still owe ₹60 lakh on a floating-rate home loan at 8.75%, and they have already taken a ₹30 lakh bridge loan at 11% towards their next home. The buyer's bank asks for the municipal record and tax receipts in the seller's name. They are still in the previous owner's name, and fixing that takes three months, so the sale closes three months late.

Interest for the delay = outstanding amount × annual rate × months ÷ 12.

• Home loan: ₹60,00,000 × 8.75% × 3 ÷ 12 = ₹1,31,250 (₹1,31,047 if you allow for the EMIs slowly reducing the principal)
• Bridge loan: ₹30,00,000 × 11% × 3 ÷ 12 = ₹82,500
• Total cost of the delay: ₹2,13,750, before any rent, a buyer walking away or a price renegotiation

Put another way, the delay costs about 2.4% of the ₹90 lakh sale price, all to fix a record that could have been updated years earlier. Your own rates will differ. The policy repo rate is 5.50% after the RBI's 7 October 2026 decision, and floating home-loan rates linked to it reset on your lender's schedule.

What to collect in the weeks after registration

• A certified copy of the registered deed and the registration receipt.
• Tax receipts from the seller for the current and previous years, and written confirmation that no arrears are outstanding. Remember that in Bengaluru unpaid tax is a first charge on the property.
• The application for khata or name transfer, filed on the corporation's portal or at the ward office, with the acknowledgement number saved.
• The updated record or bill in your name once it is issued. Check the spelling of your name, the property ID and the area against the deed.
• From then on, tax receipts in your own name every year.

Most of this is clerical. Some cases go beyond that: a record that shows a different area, a missing earlier transfer in the chain, or a property the corporation has placed in a separate category. Those are for a property lawyer, ideally before you list the flat rather than after a buyer's bank finds the problem.