Karnataka Farmland for Non-Farmers: Buying Is Legal, Building Needs Conversion

The Answer in Brief (2026)

Short answer for a non-farmer in 2026: you may legally buy farmland in Karnataka, but you may not build a house until the land is converted to non-agricultural (NA) use. The state did away in 2020 with its "only agriculturists can buy" rule, when Sections 79A, 79B and 79C of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act were repealed. A resident Indian citizen, whatever the profession or income, can now purchase such land. The trouble lies in the second question: a purchase is lawful, yet nobody may live there until a Section 95 conversion order is obtained under the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964. A seller who says "buy now and convert later" leaves you holding the demolition notice, the refused home loan and the missing occupancy certificate.

The two questions are taken one after the other below. We give the exact sections and 2026 rules that a builder's blog leaves out, and the single record that shows whether the land can really be built on before you pay.

Is It Lawful for a Non-Farmer to Buy Farmland in Karnataka?

Yes. Most older articles are still wrong on this.

Until 2020 the law of Karnataka narrowed down the people who could hold farmland:

• Section 79A stopped anyone earning more than ₹25 lakh a year from non-agricultural sources. In effect it locked out salaried professionals and business owners.
• Section 79B allowed holding only to the person who tilled the land himself. Companies, trusts, societies, co-operatives, and educational or religious bodies were named as excluded.
• Section 80 prohibited every transfer to a non-agriculturist.

Sections 79A, 79B and 79C went out through the Karnataka Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 2020, and the income ceiling went with them. Now resident Indian citizens, and companies and institutions as well, may buy Karnataka agricultural land. You need no farming background, and the ₹25 lakh income cap has gone.

Two limits remain after the repeal, and both matter:

• For NRIs, OCIs and foreign nationals the prohibition on buying farmland anywhere in India continues. FEMA imposes it, not the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, and the 2020 repeal did not touch it. An NRI wanting land in Karnataka can usually only inherit it.
• Lawful buying does not tell you whether the title is clean. A non-farmer must still run the whole title check: the 30-year deed chain, the EC, the RTC and mutation history, and a survey-number match. Before you agree a price, go through our checklist on buying agricultural land in India.

On the first question, then, you have a clear go-ahead. The second question is where people lose money.

Can I Go Ahead and Build a House?

No. Ownership of farmland carries no right to build. Section 95 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 demands that the land first be converted to non-agricultural use, which people call "DC conversion" or "NA conversion". If the order is missing, anything you build is illegal from the first brick.

The results of building on unconverted land are real:

• Building plan sanction · Effect on you: No plan for agricultural land gets approval from the local body
• Home loan · Effect on you: No bank lends on an unconverted agricultural plot
• Occupancy certificate (OC) · Effect on you: None can be issued, so the house is never legally fit to live in
• Penalty for unauthorised use · Effect on you: Up to ₹1 lakh as fine, plus ₹2,500 every day the use continues
• Demolition · Effect on you: It may be pulled down as unauthorised construction

That is why "buy now, I will convert later" is a dangerous pitch. The seller has your money and you carry the risk. Refusal is possible where the land sits in a green belt, a buffer zone or a defence or airport restriction, or carries a prohibited survey number. The result is a plot that you can neither build on nor sell easily.

Do the opposite of what most sellers propose. Buy land that is converted already. Otherwise, write conversion into the sale terms as a condition, and release the balance only once the RTC is updated.

2025 Changes: Has Conversion Become Automatic?

Partly, and this is the most recent part of the answer. Notification No. RD-LGP/6/2025, dated 17 September 2025, issued the Karnataka Land Revenue (Amendment) Rules, 2025, which created two conversion tracks:

• Land inside an approved master-plan zone, put to a use that suits the zoning, needs no separate Deputy Commissioner order now. The planning authority verifies particulars, collects the conversion fee and itself issues a digitally signed conversion certificate.
• Land outside master-plan zones still goes to the DC, but with a time limit. The DC has a short scrutiny window to decide, and an application undecided after 30 days counts as deemed approved.

Small industrial units (up to about two acres) and renewable-energy projects also got near-automatic conversion. Documents shifted to digitally signed certificates and QR-coded RTC extracts, which can be authenticated online.

Here is the catch in the new rules, which no listing agent will mention: "deemed" or "automatic" does not mean "recorded". A conversion not yet entered in the RTC (Pahani) and the mutation register cannot be relied on by a buyer, a bank or a court. Deemed or express, the order has value only once it reaches the land record. Treat a spoken "it is deemed converted" as you would an oral partition or an oral loan repayment. It is unproven until the register says so.

Checking Conversion Before You Pay

The whole transaction is decided here, and what you need is a specific record and not an assurance.

Begin with the RTC. Open the RTC (Pahani) for your survey number on the Bhoomi / landrecords.karnataka.gov.in portal and look at the land-use or nature-of-land column. Converted land shows non-agricultural use. A column that still reads agricultural (Krishi) means no conversion, whatever the seller says.

Next, confirm three matches:

• The conversion order or affidavit number should exist and be traceable. The land-records portal allows tracking of a conversion application by its Affidavit Number, and a genuine certificate from 2025 onward carries a digital signature.
• The conversion certificate, the sale deed and the RTC should all carry the same survey number. An order for the survey number next door does nothing for you.
• The stated purpose should suit what you plan to do. A Section 95 order converts land for one purpose (residential, commercial or industrial), and the purpose cannot be changed afterwards. A "commercial" conversion does not allow a home.

One more point avoids the costliest mistakes: conversion status never shows on an Encumbrance Certificate. The Registration Act, 1908 governs the EC, and it lists registered instruments only, meaning sales, mortgages and gifts. It says nothing on land use, zoning, buffer zones or conversion. A property can have a spotless EC for 30 years and still be unbuildable farmland, and a buyer who looks only at the EC always misses it. The RTC and the DC conversion order record land use. (The same blind spot hides lake buffer zones and prohibited land. Our piece on why a clean EC is not a clean property explains the full conversion process.)

The Combined Check

A non-farmer who buys Karnataka farmland to build on needs four things to line up, and in this order:

• Eligibility: you may buy only as a resident Indian citizen or an entity, and not as an NRI/OCI, where the land is agricultural.
• Title: the 30-year chain of deeds, the EC and a survey-number match prove that the seller has the right to sell.
• Conversion: either a Section 95 DC order or a planning-authority certificate under the 2025 rules, shown in the RTC and granted for your intended purpose.
• Encumbrances the EC misses: RTC and mutation history, prohibited or 22A status, and pending litigation in the owner's name.

Most buyers finish steps 1 and 2 and stop there. Steps 3 and 4 are where farmland deals break, and their evidence lies in revenue records such as the RTC, mutation register, akarband and cadastral map. Those are what a title search reads, and an EC does not.

LegiScore performs this check for Karnataka. Its property title report reads the RTC and mutation history alongside the deed chain, EC and litigation search, so conversion status, survey-number match and encumbrances come together in one rated report. You see it before paying the advance and not after a demolition notice. Our Karnataka property due-diligence guide sets out the state-specific process in full.