When Stamp isn't Enough: Why A Registered Sale Deed Can Still Leave You Homeless

Caveat emptor or “let the buyer beware” remains the golden rule, writes Shivam Singh.

Due diligence now sits squarely on the citizen when buying a property.

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

Picture the scene: you have just paid your stamp duty, pressed your thumb on the sale deed and watched the sub-registrar click “upload.” The document now carries the word “registered,” and you walk out certain the dream home is yours for good. On 7 May 2025, the Supreme Court quietly clarified the law, putting that certainty in doubt.

In Mahnoor Fatima Imran vs Visweswara Infrastructure (P) Ltd, the Court explained that registration is only a filing exercise. If the seller never owned the land, the registry’s seal cannot manufacture ownership. It is, in the Court’s words, simply “notice to the world…not unimpeachable validity,” a presumption that can be overturned when a better claim over the property emerges.

The Story Behind Mahnoor Fatima

The dispute started with 53 acres of land outside Hyderabad. Private investors bought the land through several properly registered deeds and fenced it off. Years later, the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation arrived, claiming that the same land had been taken over by the State decades earlier under land-ceiling laws. The buyers said their papers are flawless; that have already paid and registered, how can the State walk in now?

Two lower-court rulings went back and forth. When the case reached the Supreme Court, Justices K Vinod Chandran and Sudhanshu Dhulia asked a deceptively simple question: does a registered sale deed prove once and for all that you own the property? Their answer was a firm no.

Under the Registration Act, officers must accept any deed that ticks the procedural boxes: the right fee, the right signatures, the right thumb-prints. They do not examine who truly owns the land. Registration therefore passes on only the rights the seller actually has—nothing more, nothing less. If the seller’s title is empty, the buyer receives an empty shell.

Because the Hyderabad land had arguably vested in the State long ago, the sellers may never have had anything to convey. The Court would not block eviction; instead it told the parties to sort out real ownership in the proper forum.

A Sister Case: Flip Side of the Coin

In April, the Court decided K Gopi vs Sub-Registrar. Tamil Nadu had tried to make registrars act like title examiners by forcing sellers to file earlier conveyances before any new deed could be accepted. The Court struck that rule down, reasoning that clerks behind the counter cannot be turned into judges of ownership. So registration remains quick and mechanical—good for efficiency, but dangerous for unwary buyers.

Together, K Gopi and Mahnoor Fatima draw a bright line: registrars record; courts decide.

This logic tracks earlier warnings of the Supreme Court against “GPA sales”. In Suraj Lamp & Industries v. Haryana (2012), the Court had already noted that a registered instrument cannot cure a void title. Mahnoor Fatima repeats that principle, noting that GPA-style conveyances “do not convey title and do not amount to transfer.”

A short detour: what on earth are GPA sales?

Before 2011, many homes changed hands through a “General Power of Attorney” (GPA). Instead of executing a proper sale deed, the owner simply authorised someone else to “manage” the property, and that agent then “sold” it on paper. These shortcuts were cheap and, importantly, registrable.

The Supreme Court has since clarified that such GPA documents do not transfer real title; they only appoint a proxy. A GPA “sale”, therefore, leaves the buyer vulnerable if anyone with better title turns up.

Why it Matters to Ordinary Buyers & Sellers

Why you need to care about these changes, you ask? Here are some key reasons:

• Registration is necessary, not sufficient. Without it, your deed can’t even be produced in court. But with it, you still need a clean chain of earlier documents, revenue records and absence of government acquisition orders.

• Due diligence now sits squarely on the citizen. Anyone purchasing property must budget time (and perhaps a lawyer’s fee) for a title search instead of relying on the sub-registrar’s stamp.

• Possession helps but won’t always save you. Equity sometimes protects a good-faith buyer who has paid full value and moved in, yet even long possession cannot overrule a valid State takeover.

Beyond direct impact, there are also multiple ripple effects of the move.

The ruling that a registrar has no adjudicatory power to decide whether the executant has title to a property, has injected a level of doubt into everyday transactions.

While most lawyers would regardless have conducted a due diligence enquiries into the nature of the title of any property being sold, buyers now know they must look far beyond the sub-registrar’s seal. That extra layer of anxiety may cool demand as hesitant purchasers wait, and sellers find their property lingering on the market. In the short run, sales volumes may dip simply over uncertainty over who really owns what.

Tracing a clean “document chain” across decades means hiring lawyers, scouring revenue records and sometimes litigating rival claims. For middle-class families or small businesses, those fees might feel like a second down-payment.

The reliance that many place buyers place on registration deeds is only natural, as people look to the government as the deciding authority on questions of title. The issue however is that administrative officers lack the power to make such declarations.

Because registration remains a purely clerical act it may be in the interest of the Indian public for the government to introduce a Torrens-style title register, where the State itself certifies ownership and compensates anyone who is later loses out due to discrepancies in the government register. Such a system would shift the burden of verification from private buyers to government surveyors, restoring certainty to the market and trimming the legal bill for everyone.

Until that changes, caveat emptor or “let the buyer beware” remains the golden rule.

The takeaway, in one breath?

A registered deed is like a receipt: useful, sometimes decisive, but never magical. It shows the world that a transaction occurred; it does not guarantee that the seller had anything to sell. While good faith may be a legal defence that a party takes when it comes to defending their interest in a property, it is far from an ironclad defence.

After Mahnoor Fatima, buying property in India still begins at the sub-registrar’s office—but the real security starts with a thorough look at the past, not just a shiny stamp on the present

(Shivam Singh practices before the Supreme Court of India. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)