Buying a flat in Karnataka: the filings, the papers and the rules, in the order you meet them

Buying a flat in Karnataka means meeting three systems in turn: the RERA Karnataka register, the state's land and revenue records, and the city body that approved the building. Each answers a different question, and each arrives at a particular moment in the purchase. This guide lays the whole journey out in order, nine stages from the budget to the occupancy certificate, so a buyer starting from zero in Bengaluru, Mysuru or Mangaluru can see what comes next and what has to be settled before it.

Ananya and Karthik's nine questions#

Names and numbers in this story are illustrative. Ananya and Karthik, both in IT, had a Rs 85 lakh budget and three 2BHK shortlists in east Bengaluru. Karthik made a spreadsheet with one column per question: what it costs, what kind of purchase it is, what the register says, who the promoter is, whose land it is, how big the flat really is, what they sign, how construction is going, and what they get at the end. Every column turned out to have a Karnataka answer that a guide written for another state got slightly wrong, which is why this one exists. Gujarat has its own for the same reason, buying a flat in Gujarat.

The journey at a glance#

An analogy: checking in for a flight#

Every counter at an airport checks something different, and a check missed at one counter cannot be done at the gate. The ticket desk does not look at your passport, and immigration does not weigh your bag. A Karnataka purchase is built the same way. The RERA register checks the project, the revenue records check the land and the city body checks the building, and none of them checks the others for you. The order matters too: the land and the khata are cheapest to question before the booking amount is paid.

1. Budget: the price is not the cost#

Stamp duty in Karnataka is 5 percent of the higher of the price and the government's guidance value for the property, with a cess and a surcharge on top that most guides put at about 5.6 percent in urban areas. The registration fee doubled from 1 to 2 percent of the property value for documents registered from 31 August 2025, according to a notification summary by the law firm King Stubb and Kasiva. On a Rs 80 lakh flat that is roughly Rs 4.48 lakh of duty and Rs 1.6 lakh of fee; the full arithmetic, and how the guidance value decides it, is in stamp duty and registration charges in Karnataka. An under-construction flat also carries 5 percent GST (1 percent in the affordable category), explained in GST on a flat purchase, and a ready flat with a completion certificate carries none. The loan side is in a home loan on an under-construction flat.

2. Shortlist: decide the kind of purchase first#

Of the 9,040 registrations on RERA Karnataka as updated on 19 October 2026, 4,792 are residential or group housing and 3,440 are plotted developments, a far larger share of plots than Maharashtra files. A site in a layout and a flat in a tower are different purchases with different papers, and this guide follows the flat. If you are buying a site, what an approved layout around Bengaluru actually means is in BDA, BMRDA or a planning authority. The market is moving: ANAROCK put Bengaluru's sales at about 16,670 units in July to September 2026, up 12 percent on a year earlier, with average prices up 8 percent.

3. The project on RERA Karnataka#

Every registered project has a page on the RERA Karnataka portal, and ReraGenie lays each one out the same way as a Maharashtra page; ReraGenie's Karnataka coverage says what that page shows, and what the regulator itself registers, publishes and can enforce is in what is RERA Karnataka. Three things to read first: the registration number and its status, the completion date with every extension, and the latest quarterly update. The whole check, tab by tab, is in how to check a project on the RERA Karnataka portal. One Karnataka detail changes how to read the status. The register keeps a registration listed as approved after its completion date has passed, so approved is not the same as on time; the date is the answer, not the word. What each of the four status words means is in what a RERA Karnataka status means. Every project's completion date and extensions are on its free ReraGenie page, which you can open from the Karnataka project list before the first site visit.

4. The promoter behind the project#

The page names the legal entity your agreement must be with, its GSTIN and CIN where filed, and its other registrations on RERA Karnataka. It also counts the complaints filed against the promoter across the register: 2,362 registrations carry at least one complaint against their promoter. A count is not a verdict, and how to read a promoter's history across projects is in how to check a builder's track record.

5. Land and permissions#

This is where Karnataka's filings run deepest. For each survey number the promoter files the land type and tenure, the conversion order that turned it from agricultural land, the deed by which it was acquired, any joint development agreement and the khata, with the RTC, mutation record and encumbrance certificate uploaded beside them. How to read that outline as a title chain, deed by deed, is in reading a project's land title chain on RERA Karnataka. An encumbrance certificate was filed on 8,425 of the 9,040 registrations. What an encumbrance certificate proves, and what it misses, is in what is an encumbrance certificate, and the six Karnataka land papers side by side are in RTC, khata and the encumbrance certificate. The other half of this stage is the approving authority: in Bengaluru the plan may have been approved by the city corporation, the Bangalore Development Authority or one of the region's local planning authorities, and which one matters for the khata you will receive. Why the khata's type matters, and which one to accept, is in A khata, B khata and e-khata in Bengaluru.

6. The flat itself#

RERA Karnataka files every flat's carpet area on just over half of its registrations: 760,060 flat rows across 4,687 of the 9,040. The median filed carpet area of a 2BHK in Bengaluru Urban is 69.7 square metres, about 750 square feet, and of a 3BHK 101.4 square metres. Compare that with the size quoted in a brochure; ANAROCK put the average flat size in Bengaluru at 1,660 square feet in 2024, a figure that counts more than carpet. Why carpet is the only area a buyer can hold a promoter to is in carpet area vs built-up vs super built-up. How to find your own flat's row in the filing, and spot a figure filed in the wrong unit, is in carpet area in the RERA Karnataka unit table.

7. Booking, agreement and registration#

Under section 13 of the RERA Act, the promoter cannot take more than 10 percent of the cost before a registered agreement for sale. Registration in Karnataka runs through the Kaveri system at the sub-registrar, and in Bengaluru the e-khata has become part of what the sub-registrar checks. When a joint development agreement sits behind the project, the landowners are part of the picture; buying in a joint development project covers what that means for your agreement.

8. The construction years#

A newer Karnataka registration files a quarterly update: completion percentage per floor and tower, units booked and available by BHK type, and the advance collected from buyers against the amount withdrawn. Of the 2,311 registrations carrying quarterly updates as updated on 19 October 2026, 1,601 had filed the July to September 2026 quarter. How to read a quarterly report in general is in quarterly progress reports explained, how to read a Karnataka update, its money lines included, is in reading a RERA Karnataka quarterly update, and what the law gives you if the date slips is in RERA rules for delayed possession.

9. Possession and after#

Take possession against an occupancy certificate, which is not the same paper as a completion certificate, as occupancy vs completion certificate explains. On RERA Karnataka the promoter files a completion application with the certificates attached; 3,869 registrations carry one. Then a khata is issued in your name for the flat, and the owners form their association. Walk the flat first with the pre-possession inspection checklist.

What the free page does with stages three to five#

ReraGenie's free Karnataka page assembles the parts of stages three to five that the filing answers: the completion date and every extension, how many units are recorded sold or booked out of the total, the construction stage furthest along, the named landowners, the cost lines, the complaints count and the full list of filed documents, with the land papers listed per survey number. Buyer reports, the project watch and alerts cover MahaRERA projects only for now. When you are down to three Bengaluru shortlists, open each one's page from Bengaluru Urban's district page and read them side by side.

The one-line summary#

Budget on the guidance value, read the register's dates rather than its status word, read the land papers per survey number, find your flat's row in the carpet table, and pay nothing beyond 10 percent until the agreement is registered.

This article is educational and not legal advice. For a dispute, consult a lawyer who practices before your state's RERA.