The title certificate's exceptions: what 'clear and marketable' leaves out

Every project registering with MahaRERA must file an advocate's report on its land, and the report builds to one sentence: the opinion that the title is clear, marketable and without encumbrances. What surrounds that sentence decides what it is worth. On one side sits the scope, what the advocate examined and searched; on the other, the title certificate exceptions, the matters still standing between the land and a clean title. They run to a few lines and are easy to read past. Missing them is costly, because land is where India's civil disputes gather: in DAKSH's Access to Justice Survey, conducted between November 2015 and February 2016, 66 percent of the civil litigants it profiled had gone to court over land or property.

What the report is, and who it was written for#

When a promoter applies to register a project, Maharashtra's RERA rules ask for the most recent legal title report, setting out the flow of title to the land and authenticated by a practising advocate. MahaRERA standardised that report as Format A in Circular No. 28/2021, dated 8 March 2021. It is addressed to MahaRERA, and the promoter obtains it and files it: it was written for the registration, not for you.

The format asks the advocate to list the documents investigated, give an opinion on the title, and annex the flow of title: the 7/12 extract or property card as on the date of the application, the mutation entry numbers, a search report for 30 years, and litigations, if any.

The report also reaches your contract. The model agreement for sale that rule 10 of the state's RERA rules prescribes has the promoter warrant that it holds clear and marketable title to the project land, as declared in the title report annexed to the agreement, with the right to develop it and actual, physical and legal possession of it. Read the report's exceptions as part of that promise.

What you need before you start#

The report, in two copies: the one filed with the registration, in its legal title report slot or among its filed documents, which the portal walkthrough shows how to find, and the one annexed to your draft agreement. They should match; if they do not, ask which is current.

The land record for the survey, gat or CTS numbers on the registration: the 7/12 extract or the property card, read as the 7/12 guide explains.

The rest of the title file: the promoter's encumbrance declaration, the CERSAI search filed with the registration, and the litigation disclosed on it. CERSAI and the title report sets out how those layers check one another, so this guide stays with the report itself.

An hour and a pen. Print the report; you will be writing on it.

The report is nearly always there to be read.

A filled slot means a document was uploaded, not that it concludes anything in particular. If a project's slot is empty, look through the full list of its filed documents, where the report may sit under another title, and ask the promoter for a copy.

The certificate, line by line#

Every line answers one question and leaves another open. The scope lines below follow Format A; the exceptions are the kinds a report may carry, and a real one may carry none or several.

Reading it, step by step#

Step 1. Match the land and the date#

Lay the survey, gat or CTS numbers and the area in the report beside the registration, the 7/12 and your draft agreement, then note the report's date. What you will see: the land described by village and number, the owners named, a signature and a date. Red flags: a parcel in the project's layout that the report never mentions, an area smaller than the project's, or an annexed copy that differs from the filed one with no explanation. The report speaks as of its date; anything registered against the land afterwards is outside it.

Step 2. Read the scope before the conclusion#

List what the opinion rests on. Practitioners trace title for 30 years so that, as they explain it, neither the government nor a private person is left with a right to dispossess the owner. In Maharashtra the advocate, or a search clerk, inspects the sub-registrar's records for that period, where each registered document has its Index II entry, and the land records add the 7/12 or property card and the mutation entries behind each name. Professional guidance also asks the advocate to invite claims from the public, by a notice in a local newspaper, and to examine any claim that arrives. What you will see: a numbered list of documents, a search period with two dates, and the annexed flow of title. Red flags: a blank or shorter search period, a list made up only of papers the promoter supplied with no search of the advocate's own, or a claim that is mentioned and never answered.

Step 3. Read the conclusion for what it is#

The opinion usually reads that the title is clear, marketable and without encumbrances. In plain words: ownership is undisputed, the documents are valid, nothing is charged against the land, and it can be freely sold. It is an opinion, not a guarantee, and it reaches only as far as its scope. Red flag: clear and marketable title declared above a mortgage or a pending suit, with no word on how either will be cleared.

Step 4. Write down each exception, and the document that closes it#

Professional guidance on title certificates asks the advocate to disclose any encumbrances or claims on the land, the steps required to complete a clear and marketable title, and any doubts about it. An exception is one of those steps, not yet taken. Give each its own line, with the document that would close it.

A mortgage or charge. Construction finance secured on project land is ordinary, and real estate lending is large: in a September 2026 analysis of RBI data, Bank of Baroda put banks' outstanding commercial real estate credit at about Rs 6.7 lakh crore in July 2026, and non-bank lenders' at about Rs 1 lakh crore. Check that the promoter's encumbrance declaration names the same lender, ask for the lender's no-objection letter for your flat, and confirm that your agreement records the charge and that you pay into the project's designated account, as the three bank accounts explains. A charge created after your agreement is a separate question, covered in does the land carry a loan.

A pending suit or claim. Find the case in the registration's litigation disclosures and on e-Courts, read the latest order, and ask whether any order restrains the sale or the construction; the litigation check walks through it. Where a public notice drew a claim, ask how it was answered.

Someone else's right in the land: a co-owner, a landowner under a development agreement, or a tenant or occupant. Ask for the document that settles each: for a landowner, the registered development agreement, the consent and in whose share your flat sits, as buying a joint development flat explains; for a co-owner or tenant, the document that released or provided for their right.

A restriction on the land: a reservation or road line in the development plan, a condition attached to the land's conversion to non-agricultural use, or the terms of a lease or restricted tenure. Ask how the approved layout allows for a reservation or road line, and for proof that a condition or lease term has been met; the reserved plot next door, the NA plot guide and leasehold and collector's land cover each.

Red flag: an exception with no document that closes it, or an assurance that it is being resolved with nothing in writing.

Step 5. Cross-check each exception against the file#

An exception should appear wherever its subject would: a mortgage in the encumbrance declaration and the CERSAI search, a suit in the litigation disclosures, another owner on the 7/12. A gap between the layers is a question to ask. Red flag: a charge in the report that the promoter has declared as no charge, or a lender in CERSAI that the report never names.

ReraGenie's free project page for every MahaRERA registration sets the legal title report slot and its upload date beside the declared charges where filed, the litigation with case numbers and every filed document, so this cross-check starts on one screen: look the project up.

Step 6. Get each answer in writing before you pay#

Send your list to the promoter and ask for each document. If you are borrowing, the lender's panel advocate examines the title before sanction, and that note is worth asking for. If you are paying from savings, nobody else reads it, and an hour with an advocate of your own costs little beside the price of the flat.

An analogy: the fitness certificate with a note#

An employer's medical can end 'fit for duty, subject to a review of blood sugar in three months'. Nobody in the personnel office reads only the first three words: the note decides what happens next, and the tests listed decide how far 'fit' reaches. A title certificate works the same way. The conclusion is the headline, the scope is the list of tests, and the exceptions are the reviews still pending.

Kavita reads the report before the cheque#

Suresh and Kavita (illustrative, as our stories always are) paid Rs 95 lakh for their Pune retirement flat without a loan, in Suresh's sole name. No loan meant no bank's advocate would read the title for them. So before they booked, Kavita, a retired bank officer and methodical with documents, printed the project's legal title report and the copy annexed to the draft agreement, which she had asked to see first, and read both line by line. Names and numbers in this story are illustrative.

The copies matched. The land in the report was the land in the registration, the search ran for 30 years, and the report recorded that a public notice had drawn no claims. The conclusion was clear and marketable title, subject to one exception: the land was mortgaged to a bank for the project's construction loan, to be released flat by flat as flats were sold.

Kavita did not treat it as a defect; she treated it as a task. The promoter's encumbrance declaration on MahaRERA named the same bank. She asked for the bank's no-objection letter for their flat, and hit the one snag: the first letter offered covered the project in general and named no flat. She asked for one naming theirs, and it came on the bank's letterhead ten days later. The draft agreement recorded the charge and named the project's designated account for every payment. Only then did they pay.

What the report could not tell them was whether the rest of the layout would be finished. A title report speaks to the land, not to the builder's progress, and that part of their story is a different one, told in when the builder walks away.

What the buyer report does with the title report#

The Rs 499 ReraGenie buyer report reads one project's filing and selected filed documents. For this check it gives you three things:

• Land and title as five questions: who owns the land as filed, the promoter's right to build and sell, whether the land is mortgaged, what the legal title report concludes and the exceptions it attaches, and whether anything is disputed.
• Complaints and cases in plain words, which is where a suit behind an exception appears.
• The project's filed documents as a ZIP, so the title report itself arrives with the answers.

See what the buyer report covers before the booking amount moves.

The checklist, in one place#

• Get the filed report and the copy annexed to your draft agreement, and check that they match.
• Match the survey, gat or CTS numbers and the area against the registration and the 7/12.
• Read the scope before the conclusion: the documents perused, a 30-year search, the land records, and any public notice with what came of it.
• Write down every exception with the document that would close it.
• Cross-check each one against the encumbrance declaration, the CERSAI search and the litigation disclosures.
• Get every answer in writing before money moves.

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