Agreement to Sell (Iqrarnama / Bayana)

Stamp duty

Two jurisdictions, two different answers, and one of those answers is an absence you are entitled to know about. CHANDIGARH. The Chandigarh Administration's published table of "Rates of Stamp Duty & Registration Fees" prices this instrument directly. Item 22, Agreement to Sell: stamp duty at 5% of the token or earnest money — not of the whole sale price — and a registration fee of 1% of that token or earnest money, subject to a maximum of Rs 10,000, plus the pasting fee of Rs 20. So on bayana of Rs 12,50,000 the duty is Rs 62,500 and the registration fee is Rs 10,000, the cap having bitten at Rs 10,00,000 of bayana. That table is the live link from the Administration's own Land and Property page, checked in September 2026; its file was created on 17 May 2020 and it carries no notification number on its face, so treat it as the Administration's current publication and not as a dated notification. One caution the reader is owed, and it is repeated in Clause 13.3 of the document itself because that is the page a buyer budgets from. The same table prices a Chandigarh Sale, Gift, Conveyance or Sub-Conveyance at 5%, and The Tribune's explainer of 28 March 2026 agrees, but a great many property websites say 6% and no notification moving between the two figures could be found. The Rs 10,000 registration cap may equally have been revised. Before you pay, confirm both at the office of the Sub-Registrar, UT Chandigarh, 30 Bays Building, Sector 17 — and until you have that confirmation, budget for 6%, because a shortfall of one per cent on a Rs 1 crore purchase is Rs 1,00,000 to be found on the morning of the appointment. How the paper is bought in Chandigarh: physically. Authorised stamp vendors issue up to Rs 50,000. Anything above that goes through the Central Treasury, UT Chandigarh, and the duty and any deficiency are deposited at the State Bank of India, Treasury Branch, Sector 17, near KC Cinema, on a challan available at that branch. Online issue through e-Sampark is bulk purchase by banks only; for a citizen it stops at Rs 500. An agreement carrying more than Rs 500 of duty therefore cannot be e-stamped online by the parties themselves. PUNJAB. The Revenue Department's own table, "Document wise detail of Stamp Duty, Registration Fee and Facilitation charges", hosted on revenue.punjab.gov.in and retrieved on 6 September 2026, lists eleven instruments: Sale/Gift; Transfer of Property; General Power of Attorney up to five persons and above five; Special Power of Attorney; cancellation of each; Mortgage Deed with and without possession; the six bands of Pattanama/Lease; and Will/Cancellation of Will. There is no row for an agreement to sell. That absence matters and should not be papered over: it means the iqrarnama is not priced by the departmental table at all but falls to be charged under Article 5 of Schedule I-A to the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 as in force in Punjab, the general article for an agreement or a memorandum of an agreement. Before you buy the paper, take the draft to the Sub-Registrar or Joint Sub-Registrar of the tehsil in which the property lies and ask what Article 5 comes to on it. Do not take the figure from a stamp vendor's habit, and do not assume the Chandigarh figure crosses the boundary — it does not. What the Punjab table does fix, and what the Sale Deed will cost when it follows: on a Sale or Gift, stamp duty of 5% of the consideration plus 1% Social Infrastructure Cess; a registration fee of 1% of the consideration subject to a maximum of Rs 2,00,000; a Punjab Infrastructure Development Board charge of 1% of the consideration; facilitation charges of Rs 1,000 where the consideration is up to Rs 10 lakh, Rs 3,000 between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 30 lakh, and Rs 5,000 above Rs 30 lakh; and a pasting fee of Rs 200, which the table applies to every document. The mutation fee that follows registration is Rs 600 where a mutation is required. The table defines "consideration amount" as the consideration or the Collector rate, whichever is higher. All of those figures are as published by the department and retrieved on 6 September 2026; that PDF too carries no date and no notification number on its face. THE FLOOR IN BOTH PLACES IS THE COLLECTOR RATE. In Punjab it is the rate published for the revenue estate by the Deputy Commissioner of the district. In Chandigarh it is the sector-wise rate notified by the Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Collector, last revised with effect from 1 April 2026 and valid to 31 March 2027 — residential Sectors 1 to 12 at Rs 2,37,900 per square yard, Sectors 14 to 37 at Rs 1,81,300, Sectors 38 and beyond at Rs 1,33,200, and commercial SCO/SCF sites in Sector 17 at Rs 5,92,200. Those rates are revised annually, so read the current notification rather than this paragraph if the date has passed. DO NOT ASSUME A CONCESSION FOR A WOMAN BUYER. Neither published table draws any distinction by the buyer's gender, and no notification granting a concession in Punjab or in Chandigarh could be traced. The female rates widely repeated for the two places contradict each other and appear to be copied between websites. Pay the published rate unless the Sub-Registrar produces a notification saying otherwise. POSSESSION CHANGES THINGS. If the buyer is put in kabza under this agreement rather than at the registry, the instrument stops looking like a bare contract. Neither published table prices an agreement to sell under which possession passes, so the Collector may take the view that what has been executed is in substance a conveyance and charge it at the Sale or Gift rate — 5% plus 1% cess plus the PIDB charge in Punjab, 5% in Chandigarh. Section 17(1A) of the Registration Act, 1908 makes registration necessary in that case in any event. Put the question to the Sub-Registrar before executing, and get the answer before you buy the paper rather than after. SET-OFF. Where duty has been paid on the agreement and the Sale Deed then follows between the same parties for the same property, ask the Sub-Registrar whether that duty will be adjusted against the duty on the deed, and produce the original stamped agreement at the counter when you register. In Chandigarh the agreement is charged on the bayana alone, so the amount at stake is modest; in Punjab it is whatever Article 5 comes to. Neither published table sets out an adjustment rule, so do not budget for one until the office confirms it in your case. WHY ALL OF THIS MATTERS. Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 bars an instrument that is not duly stamped from being admitted in evidence for any purpose whatever until the deficient duty and a penalty are paid, and the penalty can run to ten times the deficiency. An agreement to sell earns its keep only in a courtroom. One that cannot be produced there is worth nothing. Buy the stamp on or before the date the agreement is signed, never after, and buy it in the name of one of the parties to it.

Registration

THE GENERAL RULE. An agreement to sell is not among the documents Section 17(1) of the Registration Act, 1908 makes compulsorily registrable. That is because under Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 a contract for the sale of immovable property "does not, of itself, create any interest in or charge on such property", and Section 17 keys off documents that do. No amendment to Section 17(1) making an ordinary agreement to sell between owners compulsorily registrable in Punjab or in the Union Territory of Chandigarh has been traced. Work on that basis, and if you want certainty put the question at the counter before you sign — to the Sub-Registrar or Joint Sub-Registrar of the tehsil in Punjab, or to the Sub-Registrar, UT Chandigarh, 30 Bays Building, Ground Floor, Room 1 and 2, Sector 17. THREE THINGS DISPLACE THE RULE. First, possession. Section 17(1A) of the Registration Act, inserted with effect from 24 September 2001, provides that a contract to transfer immovable property for consideration, relied on to claim the protection of Section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act, has no effect for the purposes of Section 53A unless it is registered. Plainly put: if the buyer is being put in kabza under the iqrarnama, register the iqrarnama. An unregistered one will not protect that possession. Second, a promoter. Where the seller is a promoter of a colony or apartment scheme in Punjab, Section 6 of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995 forbids the promoter from accepting more than twenty-five per cent of the sale price as an advance without first entering into a written agreement for sale in the prescribed form, and Section 7 requires that agreement to be presented for registration under the Registration Act, 1908. Where the project falls under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, Section 13 of that Act puts the ceiling at ten per cent and likewise requires a registered agreement for sale, in the form prescribed by the rules made under it. That prescribed form is the promoter's document; this template is not it. Third, the parties' own choice. Either side may register the agreement even where the law does not compel it, and there are good reasons to. A registered iqrarnama sits on the Sub-Registrar's index, so a later buyer searching the record finds it; an unregistered one is invisible to everyone but the two of you. WHERE, AND WHAT THE COUNTER EXPECTS. In Punjab, present the document before the Sub-Registrar of the tehsil in which the property lies. Registration of a sale, lease, power of attorney or partnership deed is a one-day service under the Punjab Transparency and Accountability in Delivery of Public Services Act, 2018; a certified copy of a registered document is a seven-day service and a non-encumbrance certificate a three-day service, with the Sub-Divisional Magistrate as first appellate authority and the Deputy Commissioner as second. Two extra days are added where the application is filed at a Sewa Kendra, Fard Kendra or Saanjh Kendra. In Chandigarh, the Sub-Registrar's counter runs on fixed and narrow hours: documents are presented between 12.00 noon and 1.00 pm, registration is done between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm, and documents are returned one week after presentation between 9.00 and 11.00 am. A sale, transfer, gift or exchange deed of freehold urban property is presented in triplicate; every other deed relating to freehold urban property, an agreement to sell included, in duplicate. Photographs of the executants and the claimants are affixed on the deed itself. Any document prepared or executed outside India must first be embossed by the Office of the Finance Department, Chandigarh Administration — the routine trap for a seller who is abroad. ONE THING THAT IS PARTICULAR TO CHANDIGARH AND CHANGES HOW YOU PREPARE. Since 2025 registration also triggers mutation automatically: on registration the deed and its data pass digitally from the Sub-Registrar to the Estate Office and the transferee is sent an SMS, with no separate mutation application to follow. The consequence for the buyer is practical and unforgiving — the affidavit-cum-indemnity bond and the Estate Office annexures must be complete and correct at the Sub-Registrar's counter on the day, because there is no later application in which to fix them. The Estate Office branch clerk is to complete preliminary scrutiny within two hours for a leasehold case with a valid NOC and four hours for a freehold case. TIMELINES. If the agreement is to be registered, present it within four months of execution — Section 23. Section 25 allows a further four months on payment of a fine of up to ten times the registration fee, and after eight months the document cannot be registered at all. Section 28 fixes the office by where the property lies. All parties, or their properly authorised attorneys, must appear and admit execution, and Section 32A requires passport photographs and fingerprints of every executant and of the identifying witnesses. A CHANDIGARH WARNING BEFORE YOU PAY BAYANA. Following Residents Welfare Association v. Union Territory of Chandigarh, decided by the Supreme Court on 10 January 2023, the Estate Officer's public notice effective 10 February 2023 stopped transfers and mutations of Chandigarh residential properties outside four permitted categories — building plans where all co-owners belong to the same family; all transfers within a family by any instrument, whatever the share; wills bequeathing shares within the family; and transfers where the whole of the property is bought by one person or by persons of the same family, whether or not the present owners are related — pending a decision of the Chandigarh Heritage Conservation Committee. Whether that freeze is still running has not been established. If your purchase would leave unrelated persons as co-owners of a Chandigarh residential property, ask at the Estate Office, Town Hall Building, Sector 17-C, where the matter stands before any money changes hands. Chandigarh Housing Board flats and apartments approved under the repealed Chandigarh Apartment Rules, 2001 are not affected by that notice. IF IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN REGISTERED AND WAS NOT. Section 49 shuts the document out as evidence of any transaction affecting the property, and it will not support a Section 53A defence. But read the proviso to Section 49, because it is why unregistered agreements to sell are enforced every day: an unregistered agreement may still be received as evidence of the contract in a suit for specific performance, and as evidence of a collateral transaction. That proviso is a lifeline, not a plan. It does not rescue you where Section 17(1A) applies, and it does nothing at all for a document that is unstamped.

Notarisation

Not required by law. An agreement to sell is valid and fully enforceable once the parties sign it on properly stamped paper. No statute requires a notary for it in Punjab or in the Union Territory of Chandigarh. Notarisation is still worth the small cost where the agreement is not going for registration. A notary appointed under the Notaries Act, 1952 records in the notarial register who appeared, on what date, and what they signed, and that independent entry is useful when the other side later disputes the date or denies the signature altogether. Be clear about what it does not do. Notarisation is not registration. It does not cure short stamping. It does not make an agreement admissible where Section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908 shuts it out. It does not give the buyer a Section 53A defence where Section 17(1A) requires registration. Anyone who tells you a notarised iqrarnama is as good as a registry is wrong, and the Supreme Court said so in Suraj Lamp and Industries Pvt Ltd v State of Haryana (2012) 1 SCC 656 when it condemned the agreement-plus-general-power-of-attorney-plus-will practice. WHERE A NOTARY IS ACTUALLY USEFUL HERE. In Chandigarh the Estate Office now accepts notarised affidavits in place of affidavits attested by an Executive Magistrate, except where law or policy specifically requires otherwise. That matters because the buyer's affidavit-cum-indemnity bond and the other annexures have to be ready at the Sub-Registrar's counter on the day of registration, mutation being automatic from that point. Getting them notarised in advance is the ordinary way to have them ready. The same is true of the affidavits the Chandigarh Housing Board asks for on a joint transfer application. THE POWER OF ATTORNEY POINT, WHICH IS NOT OPTIONAL. If a seller signs through a power of attorney, that power must itself be properly stamped and registered. In Punjab, the Revenue Department's table prices a general power of attorney at Rs 2,000 for up to five persons and Rs 4,000 for more than five, with a registration fee of Rs 400 and facilitation charges of Rs 2,000; a special power of attorney at Rs 1,000 with a registration fee of Rs 100; cancellation of a general power at Rs 1,000 and of a special power at Rs 500. In Chandigarh, the Administration's table charges a general power of attorney carrying the power to sell at 3% of the value of the property or the consideration, whichever is higher, with a registration fee of Rs 50; a plain general power at Rs 75, or Rs 150 if given for or by more than five persons; a special power at Rs 15, and a special power carrying the power to sell at 3%. A merely notarised general power of attorney is not enough to convey, and a buyer who accepts one is buying a dispute. Ask to see the original, check that it is registered, check that the executant is alive, and prefer to have the owner sign the Sale Deed personally.

Witnesses

An agreement to sell does not need attesting witnesses as a matter of law. The two-witness attestation rule applies to instruments the law singles out — a gift under Section 123 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, a mortgage by deed, a will under Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 — and this is not one of them. Sign before two witnesses anyway. This template provides for them for two practical reasons. First, if the agreement goes for registration, Section 34(3)(c) of the Registration Act, 1908 requires the Sub-Registrar to be satisfied about the identity of the persons appearing, and identifying witnesses carrying their own ID are how that is done at the counter. Second, when a property deal collapses, the fight is almost always about who signed what and when. A witness who can be produced in court is worth more than any recital in the document. CHANDIGARH HAS A RULE ABOUT WHO THE FIRST WITNESS MAY BE, AND IT IS ENFORCED AT THE COUNTER. Registration of a deed at the Sub-Registrar, UT Chandigarh needs two witnesses, and the first of them must qualify under paragraph 127 of the Punjab Registration Manual — in practice a Lambardar, Sarpanch or Member Panchayat for a deed in a rural area, or a councillor, a gazetted officer or an advocate. Both witnesses must be known to each other, and the first witness must be known to the Sub-Registrar. Line that person up before you take the appointment; a first witness who does not qualify sends the whole party home from the counter with the duty already paid. PUNJAB. The Punjab Registration Manual is the working manual at a Punjab Sub-Registrar's counter as well, and the practice there is the same in substance: two witnesses, identified, each carrying PAN or Aadhaar. Ask the tehsil office in advance whom it will accept as the first witness, because a Sub-Registrar's practice on identification is settled locally and it is cheaper to ask than to be turned away. Choose them properly whatever the office requires: adults of sound mind, not parties to the agreement, not related to a party if you can avoid it, likely to be contactable in three or four years, and carrying their own PAN or Aadhaar. Record each witness's full name, address and phone number, not just a signature. Have every party and every witness sign each page of the agreement and initial every correction, not only the last page — a page substituted later is a real risk in a document worth this much. Where the agreement is registered, remember that Section 32A of the Registration Act, 1908 wants photographs and fingerprints of the identifying witnesses too, so they must attend in person.