This is the single most common misunderstanding about the khata system in Bengaluru, and it costs people money because they buy on the strength of it. Digitisation and regularisation are two different things.
Why the property is in the B register at all
A property sits in the B register because something about it does not comply: the land was never converted from agricultural use, the layout was never approved, the construction departed from the sanctioned plan, or the property falls in a revenue pocket that was absorbed into the municipal area without approval. The municipality still collects tax on it, which is what the B register records. Collecting the tax is not the same as approving the property.
What changes, and what does not
| Before | After e-khata | |
|---|---|---|
| Record format | Manual or partly digital | Electronic, with a property ID |
| Register | B | Still B |
| Building plan approval | Not available | Still not available |
| Bank loan | Often refused or restricted | Unchanged by digitisation alone |
| Registration of a sale | Blocked without the digitised record | The formality is satisfied |
| Resale value | Discounted | Unchanged by digitisation alone |
What an actual move from B to A requires
Which defect is holding the property in the B register
- Agricultural land never converted? Conversion for non-agricultural use has to be obtained. Until then nothing else can be regularised.
- Unapproved layout? The layout has to be approved, which is a decision for the planning authority and often involves the developer, not the individual buyer.
- Deviation from the sanctioned plan? Regularisation depends on whether a scheme is open at the time, and schemes have opened and closed repeatedly.
- Betterment and other charges outstanding? Payable, and a receipt for them is not by itself conversion.
- None of the above can be cured? Then the property stays B, and it should be bought and priced on that basis.
"It has e-khata now, so it is as good as A khata" is not correct, and it is the sentence that most often precedes a bad purchase. Ask to see the record itself and read which register it names. Where a regularisation scheme is said to be available, ask for the notification, not the assurance.
If you are buying anyway
- Read the khata extract and confirm in writing which register the property is in
- Get a written position from your lender before you pay the advance, not after
- Price the property as a B khata property, because that is what you are buying
- Check whether the construction is within the sanctioned plan, separately
- Confirm whether conversion for non-agricultural use was ever obtained
- Confirm the resale position with a second lender, since one refusal is a pattern
- Put any promise about future regularisation into the agreement, with a consequence
What it actually takes to move a property out of the B register, defect by defect, is set out in our guide to B khata to A khata conversion in Karnataka, and the mechanics of the digitised record are in our note on e-khata in Bengaluru. The wider position on the two registers is set out in the A khata and B khata answer, and the due diligence sequence is on the property practice page.