Khata and Sale Deed Show Different Survey Numbers: Buy or Walk Away?

Quick answer (2026)

Where the survey number in the sale deed differs from the one in the khata, hold your payment and hold the registration. First find out which paper has the error and why. A khata is a tax record and says nothing final about ownership, so the difference alone does not spoil the title. The cause matters. A typing slip in the khata can be corrected. But if the deed carries a survey number that the seller's own earlier deeds never had, you may be paying for a different parcel from the one the municipality taxes. Take the sale deed as your starting point. Track its survey number backwards via the mother deed, the EC and the revenue entry. After that you can say if this is a fix or a reason to leave.

Bengaluru adds a practical reason to sort this out early. From 1 October 2024 you need a valid e-Khata to register a sale on Kaveri 2.0, and an incorrect e-Khata stops the registration cold. You cannot leave the mismatch for later, because it can block you on the registration day itself.

Where each number comes from

In Karnataka, one property sits in three government systems. Three departments maintain them, each for its own purpose. Buyers who mix them up cannot tell a harmless difference from a serious one, and that is where most of the panic comes from.

• Sale deed and encumbrance certificate · Held by: Stamps and Registration (Kaveri) · What it shows: The transaction itself. Who transferred the property to whom, and which charges are registered on it.
• Survey number, RTC, mutation register · Held by: Survey and settlement wing of Revenue (Bhoomi) · What it shows: Which land parcel it is, how large it is, and whom the revenue record lists as in possession.
• Khata / e-Khata · Held by: Municipal body or gram panchayat (BBMP, now GBA) · What it shows: Who must pay property tax on that unit.

A survey number is the permanent government identifier for a piece of land. A khata is the civic body's register of who gets the tax bill. Both refer to the same property, yet different offices update them at different times. That is why they slip out of step.

This is settled law and not a matter of opinion. Karnataka High Court rulings say that a khata gives no right, title or interest in property and matters only for paying corporation tax. In Dr. S. Shobha v. The Commissioner, BBMP (2021), the Court added that BBMP may not issue a khata without checking that the documents are lawful. If there is doubt or a dispute, BBMP must refuse and send the applicant to a civil court for a declaration of title. The Supreme Court took this line on revenue and mutation entries long ago. See Balwant Singh v. Daulat Singh (1997) 7 SCC 137: these entries neither create nor end ownership and exist for fiscal ends.

Do not read this as saying the mismatch is trivial. The point is that a khata cannot repair a faulty deed, and a spotless khata cannot make a weak title strong. Ownership moves through the sale deed, so the number that counts is the one written in it and in the deeds behind it.

Two causes, opposite outcomes

Only two situations are possible, and they lead to opposite results. Your task is to work out which one you face.

Case 1: khata wrong, deed right. This is the common and mild one. Every title paper of the seller (his deed, the mother deed, the EC) agrees on a single survey number, and the khata alone is off. Usually it was opened on an old number, a clerk keyed it wrongly, or it was never revised when the land was split. Title is sound. Only the khata needs fixing.

Case 2: the deed itself is off, or it describes land nobody in the chain owned. Deals die here. The survey number in the sale deed is absent from the seller's earlier chain of title, or it belongs to a physically different parcel from the one you visited. The deed then transfers one plot while you think you are getting another. Correcting the khata does nothing here, because the fault lies in the document that moves ownership.

The khata cannot tell you which case it is. You find out by fixing on the deed and tracing backwards.

Steps to trace the number before paying

Follow these in sequence. You are not trying to collect a pile of papers. You are trying to find the one survey number on which the seller's real title runs, then test every other record against it.

• Open the seller's sale deed first, not the khata. Copy out its survey number, hissa (sub-plot) number, area and the four boundaries word for word. This is your benchmark, and every other record is compared with it.
• Obtain the mother deed and every deed in the chain. The survey number in the seller's deed must run back, transfer after transfer, to the number his own vendor bought. If the number shifts somewhere with no explanation, the defect sits at that point. A title search report is built to catch a broken link of this sort.
• Compare with the encumbrance certificate. A NIL EC means only that nothing registered was found for the precise number and dates searched. Type a wrong number and the portal returns nothing, which looks like a clean record yet covers the wrong parcel. Make sure the EC used the deed's number. Our Karnataka encumbrance certificate guide shows how on Kaveri 2.0.
• Check the revenue record. Download the present RTC (plus the mutation register for revenue land) from Bhoomi, landrecords.karnataka.gov.in. Search district by district down to village and survey number. It lists the live survey number, area and occupant. A deed number that Bhoomi does not know is the point to stop.
• Look for a sub-division, the most common innocent cause. A survey number shared out among owners gets hissa numbers: Survey No. 47 turns into 47/1, 47/2, etc. A khata raised earlier may keep parent 47 while the deed correctly says 47/2. The split sketch (11E sketch, or tippani and akarband records) shows the division and links the two. A mismatch like this is nearly always a delay in records and not a flaw in title.
• Read the khata last. By now the chain and the RTC have given you the correct survey number. See whether the khata just has an outdated or mistyped number (Case 1) or a number belonging to a different parcel (Case 2). See also our patta and khata guide and property mutation guide, which explain that these records trail the deed.

Remedies: rectification deed or khata correction

The cure depends on which paper holds the error, which is why the tracing must come first.

• Mistake in the khata alone, with a clean deed and chain. Apply to the local body for a khata correction. On e-Aasthi / e-Khata the request goes to the revenue officer of the area, along with the registered deed, current tax receipt and EC. Nothing needs registering again; the deed is already correct.
• Mistake in the sale deed, but only a clerical one. You need a registered rectification deed, signed by both sides and registered as the original was, replacing the number with the one the chain backs. Make the seller sign it before the sale closes. After payment, the seller's willingness to help tends to vanish, and a rectification deed cannot be done without him.
• The deed names land the seller never owned, or a different physical plot. There is nothing to correct, as nobody can rectify a title he never had. Drop the deal, or rework it to buy the parcel the chain does support, priced accordingly.

The Bengaluru registration rule

For property in Greater Bengaluru, the mismatch now affects registration as well as legal safety. Since 1 October 2024 a valid e-Khata is compulsory to register a sale on Kaveri 2.0, and from 2025 the rule spans the full BBMP area, now run by the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), which replaced BBMP in September 2025. Three reasons commonly block e-Khata issue: unpaid property tax, names that differ between deed and tax records, and survey number or property ID gaps in old layouts that were never completely digitised.

In plain terms, a wrong e-Khata does more harm than none. It is an active official record contradicting your deed, and the sub-registrar will not finish registration until it is cleared. So the survey number mismatch is not something to tidy up in the months after purchase. In Bengaluru it can halt registration on the day, after your money is already committed. Resolve it before you pay.

Why you should not judge this alone

Of all real defects, survey number mismatch is the one we meet most, and buyers often argue themselves past it. The seller gives a confident explanation and the file looks complete otherwise. Yet a harmless records delay and a fatal wrong parcel look identical unless someone reads the whole chain, the EC on the right number, the RTC, the mutation history and the sub-division sketch together and checks them against each other.

A proper title investigation does this, as would a lender's panel advocate. If you are about to pay an advance on a property whose survey numbers disagree, get the title verified first, so you know whether you face a correction or a deal to leave. For the wider checklist on buying in Karnataka, see our property due diligence guide for Karnataka.