B-Khata to A-Khata Conversion and E-Khata in Karnataka: The Legal Position

A B khata is not a weaker title deed, because a khata, A or B, was never a title document at all: it is an entry in the municipal property register recording who is primarily liable to pay property tax. B khata to A khata conversion is the process of moving a property from the separate register kept for sites with legal defects into the main register, and Karnataka has, for the first time, opened a formal online route for it. The scheme began in Bengaluru on November 1, 2025, a discounted conversion fee of 2 per cent of guidance value was announced for 100 days from May 15, 2026, and the Cabinet has extended the framework to urban local bodies across the state. This guide covers the two registers, the legal cost of a B khata, the e-khata mandate, the conversion procedure, and what a buyer should verify.

Part of the property and real estate practice at S Jain & Attorneys, Bangalore.

What a khata is, and what the B register really means

Khata literally means account. The corporation maintains an assessment register of properties within its limits, and the khata is the entry showing the property, its measurements, and the person primarily liable for property tax. The khata certificate and extract are copies of that entry. The framework comes from the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976, which governed Bengaluru until the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act, 2020 replaced it for the city, and since 2025 from the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, under which the BBMP was dissolved on September 2, 2025 and replaced by the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) and five city corporations.

None of these statutes makes the khata proof of ownership. The Supreme Court settled the principle in Sawarni v. Inder Kaur (1996): mutation in revenue records does not create or extinguish title, nor has it any presumptive value on title. A khata tells you who the corporation bills for tax. Title comes from the registered documents that stand behind the entry.

The B register has a specific statutory history. In 2009, Section 108A was inserted into the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976 to let the corporation levy and collect property tax even from buildings and vacant lands that were unauthorised or lacked the approvals needed for a regular khata. Properties taxed under this provision went into a separate register. The main assessment register came to be called the A register, and the separate one the B register. A B khata is an entry in that second register: an acknowledgment that tax is being collected on a property which, in the corporation's own records, carries a legal defect. It is a tax collection device, not a regularisation.

Why properties end up with a B khata

Bengaluru's B register grew with the city: press reporting on the conversion scheme puts the number of B khatas issued at around 7.5 lakh. The common routes in are these.

First, revenue sites: plots carved out of agricultural land and sold without the land ever being converted to non-agricultural use under Section 95 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, the process commonly called DC conversion. Second, unapproved layouts: layouts formed without planning authority approval, or where sites were sold before the layout was sanctioned and sites released. Third, construction without a sanctioned plan: buildings, including many apartment buildings, put up without building plan approval, which left individual flats holding B khata entries. Fourth, unpaid dues: in practice, sites where betterment charges were never paid have stayed outside the A register even where other defects were curable. Bifurcated sites, split and sold in parts without fresh approval, sit in the same basket.

The four routes into the B register are worth keeping distinct, because the cure for each is different.

The legal consequences of holding a B khata

The consequences are practical and they compound. The civic body does not sanction building plans for B khata properties, so an owner cannot lawfully construct, reconstruct or add floors. Since July 1, 2025, an e-khata is a precondition for building plan approval in Bengaluru, and the plan approval software is integrated with the khata database. Most banks and housing finance companies refuse loans against B khata properties, for purchase and for construction alike, because they treat the defect noted in the register as a title risk.

Resale suffers for the same reason. The sale of a B khata site is not prohibited, and such sales are registered every working day, but the buyer pool shrinks to purchasers who can pay without finance and accept the risk, which is why B khata sites trade at a discount to comparable A khata sites. A building on such a site will usually also lack an occupancy certificate, which carries its own problems for utilities and resale; we have covered those in our guide to occupancy certificates in Bangalore.

Key takeaway. A khata, whether A or B, records who pays property tax. It does not decide who owns the property, and a B khata does not ripen into title however long the tax is paid.

The comparison below summarises where the two entries differ in day-to-day legal effect.

The e-khata mandate: what changed from October 2024

The e-khata is the digital form of the khata entry, issued in Bengaluru through the e-Aasthi system (bbmpeaasthi.karnataka.gov.in), with each property assigned an ePID, an electronic property identification number. From October 2024, a final e-khata is mandatory for registering sales, purchases and mortgages in Bengaluru's urban limits: the sub-registrar's system under the Registration Department's Kaveri online platform verifies the e-khata before a sale deed is registered. From July 1, 2025, the civic body extended the requirement to building plan approvals as well. The rollout was rocky at first, but about five lakh e-khatas had been issued by mid 2025, and by early 2026 Deccan Herald reported close to nine lakh applications with 99 per cent processed.

Two points of law matter here. First, the e-khata does not change which register you are in. There are final e-khatas for A register properties and for B register properties; digitisation is not an upgrade, and a B khata does not become an A khata because it is now on a portal. Second, the e-khata has become the gateway document: without a final e-khata you cannot register a sale, you cannot get a building plan sanctioned, and, as we will see, you cannot even apply for conversion. If you have bought a property and need the khata moved into your name, that is khata transfer, a different procedure we have covered in our guide to e-khata transfer in Bangalore after purchase. This article deals with the separate question of moving a property from the B register to the A register.

B khata to A khata conversion: the scheme now open

Until 2025 there was no general route out of the B register: an owner had to cure the underlying defect (land conversion, layout approval, betterment charges) and then seek an A khata, impossible in practice for most revenue layouts. That changed in stages.

In July 2025 the state Cabinet approved the grant of A khata status to B khata properties recorded up to September 30, 2024, and the stated policy is that no fresh B khata entries will be created for unauthorised constructions after that date. The legal footing comes from the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act framework: officials told the New Indian Express that Section 221 of the new Act supplies one core condition, road access, and that private roads which provide access to sites and buildings are treated as public roads for this purpose, which protects revenue layout residents. The GBA rolled out its online conversion software in August 2025.

The scheme opened on November 1, 2025 for a 100 day application window. As launched, it covers vacant sites and buildings with a single unit in single ownership, up to 2,000 square metres through the fully online route at bbmp.karnataka.gov.in/BtoAKhata, and larger sites through an architect or engineer route on the BPAS building plan portal (bpas.bbmpgov.in). Individual flats holding B khatas are outside the launched scheme. The fee was fixed at 5 per cent of the property's guidance value plus a registration fee of Rs 500, and the government projected over 7 lakh eligible properties and revenue of about Rs 10,000 crore.

Uptake was poor: roughly 7,000 applications in the first six months. So on May 13, 2026 the Deputy Chief Minister announced a 60 per cent discount, cutting the conversion fee from 5 per cent to 2 per cent of guidance value for applications made within 100 days from May 15, 2026. On a site with a guidance value of Rs 1 crore, that is Rs 2 lakh instead of Rs 5 lakh. The GBA has also applied exclusions through internal guidelines: properties standing on land earmarked for roads, storm water drains and other public infrastructure are being rejected. In January 2026 the Cabinet extended the conversion framework to all urban local bodies in Karnataka on the same parameters, covering an estimated 10 lakh properties and bringing them within the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961. And from February 2026, the Revenue Department has done away with separate land conversion in Greater Bengaluru's master plan areas: land use now converts automatically as part of plan approval, removing a bottleneck of four to six months that fed the B register for decades.

Deadline warning. The 2 per cent fee was announced for 100 days from May 15, 2026, which takes the discounted window to the fourth week of August 2026. After it closes, the announced rate reverts to 5 per cent of guidance value, so confirm the fee actually in force before you apply.

The sequence of changes is easier to see as a timeline.

What conversion does not do: akrama-sakrama stays frozen

Khata conversion regularises the record of the site, not the building standing on it. The Deputy Chief Minister said so in terms at the launch: the scheme does not regularise any unauthorised construction. Violations of the sanctioned plan remain actionable under the building bye-laws even after the site moves to the A register.

Building regularisation is the province of akrama-sakrama, the scheme under Section 76FF of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961, which broadly proposed to regularise limited setback and plan deviations in existing buildings on payment. That scheme has been frozen for a decade: after the Karnataka High Court upheld it, challengers moved the Supreme Court, which ordered status quo. Nothing has been regularised under it since, and when the 2 per cent window was announced in May 2026 the government clarified that khata conversion does not fall within akrama-sakrama, on which the status quo order continues. Khata conversion, land use conversion and building regularisation are three different legal operations, and only the first two have working machinery today.

Common mistake. Assuming that an A khata, once granted, cures everything. Conversion fixes the register entry for the site. Plan violations in the building remain open to enforcement, and akrama-sakrama is still stayed in the Supreme Court.

How to convert: the step-by-step procedure

For eligible properties in Greater Bengaluru, the procedure as rolled out works like this.

1. Confirm eligibility. The property should be a B register entry recorded on or before September 30, 2024, a vacant site or single-unit building in single ownership, and not on land earmarked for roads, drains or other public infrastructure. Flats are outside the launched scheme.
2. Obtain the final B e-khata. The application runs on the ePID of a final e-khata, so digitise your B khata on e-Aasthi first and clear property tax arrears.
3. Apply online. For sites up to 2,000 square metres, log in with mobile OTP at bbmp.karnataka.gov.in/BtoAKhata, enter the ePID, and complete Aadhaar authentication of the owner. Both converted sites and unconverted revenue sites can apply.
4. Confirm site and road details. Confirm the site's location and the type of road in front of it; this feeds the road access condition.
5. Print the acknowledgment and await verification. The corporation conducts a site visit and confirms the ground position against the application.
6. Pay the fee. Pay the single plot approval fee online: the notified percentage of guidance value (2 per cent within the discounted window, 5 per cent otherwise) with the Rs 500 registration fee and other applicable charges.
7. Receive the A khata. On payment, the system processes approval and conversion of the B khata to an A khata, issued as an e-khata against the same ePID.
8. Larger sites: the BPAS route. For sites above 2,000 square metres, apply through a registered architect or engineer on bpas.bbmpgov.in with plot drawings, pay the scrutiny fee, and the single plot approval and A khata follow inspection and eligibility.

Applications can also be filed at help desks in the five city corporation offices and through BangaloreOne centres. Outside Bengaluru, the January 2026 Cabinet decision applies the same parameters through each urban local body; check your municipality's notification. In gram panchayat areas the register works differently: compliant properties hold Form 9 and Form 11 under the e-Swathu system, and defective ones Form 11B.

What a buyer should check before buying a B khata property

In our property practice in Bangalore, B khata sites come to us most often after the agreement is signed, when the buyer's bank has refused the loan or the seller's promised A khata has not materialised, and the disputes that follow are fought over advances paid on unverified assumptions. What we consistently see in Bangalore courts is that judges treat the khata exactly as the statute does, as a tax entry: a purchaser who relied on a khata extract as proof of title gets little sympathy, and the real battle turns on the registered title chain, conversion status and layout approvals. The practical lesson is to price the defect, paper the risk, and never treat a promised conversion as a certainty.

Before committing money to a B khata purchase, verify at least this much. Pull the complete title chain and the mother deed, and check the encumbrance certificate online through Kaveri for the full holding period. Confirm the land's revenue history: the RTC entries, whether DC conversion happened, and whether the layout had planning approval or is a pure revenue layout. Inspect the e-khata: ask for the ePID, see whether the entry sits in the A or B register, and match the schedule with the sale deed. Check tax paid and betterment charge receipts. Verify road access on the ground and on record, since it decides conversion eligibility, and check the site is not on land earmarked for a road or storm water drain, which the guidelines exclude. If there is a building, ask for the sanctioned plan and occupancy certificate. Structure the transaction so that payments track verification: our guide on the difference between a sale agreement and a sale deed explains how to stage the commitment. Where eligibility is clear, it is usually worth requiring the seller to complete the B khata to A khata conversion before the sale deed, or pricing the conversion fee into the consideration with a holdback. For structured due diligence support, see our property and real estate practice.

The core of that checklist compresses into four verifications.

One closing caution. The window mechanics, fees and eligibility categories here reflect announcements up to August 2026, and these executive schemes have already been modified once. Treat every figure as indicative, confirm the current notification, and take advice on your specific title before paying a conversion fee.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Guides

• E-Khata Transfer in Bangalore After Property Purchase
• How to View an Encumbrance Certificate Online in Karnataka
• Occupancy Certificate in Bangalore: Your Rights
• Sale Agreement vs Sale Deed: The Difference That Decides Disputes