If you are buying a house, flat or any other immovable property, then you must remember that just registering the property does not prove your ownership. In a 2025 Supreme Court judgment, it was made clear that just by registering a property, you do not become the owner of it. Both registration and mutation are very important to establish ownership, because only after mutation your name is officially registered as the owner of the property with the revenue department. The Supreme Court gave this judgment in the case of Mahnoor Fatima Imran vs. State of Telangana.
What did the Supreme Court judgment say?
If a person sells any property, including a house, plot, flat or any other place, only through the property registry, then he will not be able to prove the ownership or title of the property acquired personally. This is because the purchase and sale of any property is recorded in the official records of the department. In addition to registration, several other essential elements are required to prove ownership, including property deeds, original deeds, release of liability documents, and mutation documents.
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What documents are required to prove ownership?
A registration license alone is not enough to prove ownership of any property; several other important documents are required for this. The most important of these is the original deed (mother deed). This document shows the place of residence of the person, the source of the property or land, and whether the land was previously acquired through ancestral lines. This document reveals the complete history of the property.
Apart from the original deed, another important document is the encumbrance certificate. This document helps to verify whether the property being purchased is under any previous debt, liability, or pending lawsuit. The most important document is the mutation or name transfer deed. Through this process, the name of the owner is registered in the government records after registration. If this document is not provided, then the name of the previous owner is recorded in the government records and your name is not listed as the owner.
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You also need to ensure that the previous owner has paid all applicable taxes, the most important of which is property tax. If you apply for a position without thorough verification, you may be required to submit property documents.