The pre-purchase checklist we actually use, beyond title verification

Title verification and property due diligence get used as if they mean the same thing, and they do not. Title verification answers one question: can the seller actually convey what they are selling. Due diligence is broader. It asks whether the property, once you own it, will actually let you do what you bought it to do, and whether anything outside the title chain itself exposes you to risk.

Layout and land-use approval sits outside pure title work but matters just as much. A plot can have a perfectly clean title and still sit in an unapproved layout, which affects your ability to get a building permission, a bank loan, or, eventually, to sell it on to a buyer who is doing their own diligence properly. We verify DTCP, CMDA or the relevant local planning authority's layout approval directly, rather than relying on the seller's representation that the layout is approved, and we check whether the classified land use, residential, agricultural or otherwise, actually matches what you intend to build.

Financial exposure is the second layer most buyers skip. A CERSAI search shows whether the property is mortgaged to a bank or financial institution, independent of whether that mortgage appears in the Encumbrance Certificate. Outstanding property tax, water and electricity dues transfer with the property in practice even though they are not always a legal charge on it, and an unresolved due can hold up your own connection application after purchase. Where the seller is a company or a partnership, an insolvency search confirms they are not currently facing proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code that could later be used to claw back the sale as a preferential transaction.

Physical verification closes the gap between paper and ground reality. We compare the Field Measurement Book sketch against the actual site, confirm the seller or their tenant is genuinely in possession rather than a stranger, and check for any approach-road or easement issue that the documents describe differently from how access actually works on the ground. For apartments, this extends to confirming the occupancy certificate has actually been issued, not merely applied for, and that the undivided share allotted matches what the sale deed will state.

A due diligence report that only confirms clean title and stops there has done half the job. The other half, layout legality, financial encumbrances outside the registration record, and physical possession, is where the genuinely expensive surprises tend to hide, and it is why we run all of it as one exercise rather than treating title verification as sufficient on its own.