Two records are usually meant by this question and they belong to different systems. Confusing them wastes months, because the office you need is not the office you are writing to.
The two records
- Khata, in a city corporation area. This is the entry in the property tax register showing who is liable to pay tax on the property. The Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976 requires that whenever the title of a person primarily liable to pay property tax is transferred, both the transferor and the transferee give notice of the transfer to the Commissioner within three months of the execution of the instrument of transfer, or of its registration where it is registered. Where the person primarily liable has died, the person to whom title passes as heir must give notice within one year of the death. When the transfer comes to the Commissioner's knowledge through that notice, the transferee's name is entered in the property tax register.
- Mutation, in the revenue system. For land held under the revenue record, the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 requires the prescribed officer to enter every report of a transfer in the Register of Mutations, to post a copy of the entry in the chavadi and to give written intimation to every person appearing to be interested, with objections recorded in a Register of Disputed Cases and disposed of after an enquiry before the entry is certified.
The municipal provision is expressly about liability for property tax, and the revenue provision is about maintaining a record. A khata in your name proves that the corporation looks to you for the tax. It does not prove ownership, and it will not save a purchase made on an unregistered agreement. If someone is offering to get you a khata as a substitute for a registered conveyance, walk away from the transaction.
Why the intimation provision matters to an absent owner
The revenue procedure runs on notice. The entry is posted locally and written intimation goes to everyone appearing from the record to be interested. An owner living abroad, whose address in the record is the family house he left in 1998, receives none of it, and the objection window closes without him. That is how NRIs discover a certified mutation in someone else's favour years later. Keep a current address of service in the records, and keep an Indian mobile number on the file, because almost every notice now travels that way.
The municipal provision has its own trap in the other direction. Until notice of the transfer is given or the transfer is recorded, the transferor continues to be liable for the property tax assessed on the premises. A seller who never followed up on the khata transfer is still on the corporation's books.
What can be done from abroad, and what cannot
- The khata application. Karnataka has moved the Bengaluru khata process online, with the application, the documents and the payment handled electronically. Our guide on the e-khata transfer in Bengaluru sets out the current process and the documents it asks for.
- The underlying registration. This is what usually needs someone here. The Registration Act, 1908 allows a document to be presented for registration by the person executing it or by his agent duly authorised by power of attorney executed and authenticated in the manner the Act prescribes, and it provides that where the principal does not reside in India the power must be executed before and authenticated by a Notary Public, or any court, judge, magistrate, Indian consul or vice-consul, or a representative of the Central Government. Get that route right and the deed can be registered without you.
- Stamping. A power executed abroad has to be stamped in India within the period the stamp law allows after it is first received here, and in Karnataka an instrument not duly stamped is inadmissible in evidence until the duty and any penalty are paid. Do not let the document sit in a drawer.
- Verify before applying. Pull the encumbrance position first, because a khata application on a property with an unnoticed charge or a pending dispute stalls at the enquiry stage. Our guide on viewing the encumbrance certificate online in Karnataka shows how.
- Check which khata you actually have. Properties on the supplementary register are a separate problem with its own route, and our guide on converting a B khata to an A khata in Karnataka sets out what that involves before you attempt a transfer.
On inherited property
Where the transfer is on a death rather than a sale, the corporation and the revenue office will want proof of who the heirs are, which usually means a legal heir certificate or, where there is a will, the will and whatever grant the office insists on. That document has to come first. An application for khata transfer filed before the entitlement is established will simply sit, and the one year period the municipal law allows after a death for giving notice runs whether or not the family has got around to it.