Sale Deed (Bainama)

Stamp duty

Ad valorem conveyance duty on the higher of the price and the Collector rate, plus — in Punjab only — three separate add-on levies. Duty must be paid BEFORE or AT THE TIME OF execution, section 17 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899; stamping afterwards is a defect, not a formality. All facts affecting chargeability must be set out truly in the instrument, section 27. An instrument not duly stamped is inadmissible in evidence and will not be registered under section 35, and can later be admitted only on payment of the deficient duty plus penalty running up to ten times the deficiency. PUNJAB — 5% duty, plus 1% cess, plus 1% Board fee, plus 0.25% Special Infrastructure Development Fee. That is 7.25%, not 7%. A sale deed is chargeable as a conveyance under entry 23 of Schedule I-A to the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 as applied to Punjab. On top of the 5% duty sit three levies on the same value: the Social Infrastructure Cess at 1% under section 3-D of that Act as applied to Punjab; the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board fee at 1%; and the Special Infrastructure Development Fee at 0.25%, the last two being fees under sections 25 and 25-A of the Punjab Infrastructure (Development and Regulation) Act, 2002 rather than stamp duty. Both of those two were confirmed as standing charges by Notification No. S.O. 25/P.A.8/2002/Ss.25 and 25-A/2023 dated 28 February 2023, which suspended them for the month of March 2023 alone. The 0.25% is the one people leave out of the budget, and leaving it out is how a Punjab deed goes to the counter short. Registration fee is 1% of the same value subject to a maximum of Rs 2,00,000, under the fee table notified as S.O. 11/C.A.16/1908/Ss.78 and 79/Amd./2019 dated 4 February 2019. Facilitation charges are slab-based — Rs 1,000 where the consideration is up to Rs 10 lakh, Rs 3,000 from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh, Rs 5,000 above Rs 30 lakh. A pasting fee of Rs 200 is charged on every document, and the mutation fee, payable later at the revenue office and not to the Sub-Registrar, is Rs 600. The Revenue Department's table states that 'consideration amount means Consideration amount or Collector rate, whichever is higher', so the base can never fall below the Collector rate fixed for the revenue estate — a rate revised annually with effect from 1 April by the Deputy Commissioner as Collector under Rule 3-A of the Punjab Stamp (Dealing of Undervalued Instruments) Rules, 1983, and published on the district website and the PLRS website. The duty, cess, fee, ceiling, slabs and pasting figures are from 'Document wise detail of Stamp Duty, Registration Fee and Facilitation charges', hosted at revenue.punjab.gov.in, retrieved 6 September 2026; that PDF carries no date and no notification number on its face, so confirm at the Sub-Registrar's counter of the tehsil before you buy the stamp. PUNJAB — a female buyer pays 3%, not 5%, and only on the stamp duty. Notification No. S.O.127/C.A.2/1899/S.9/2010 dated 11 February 2010, published in the Punjab Government Gazette (Extraordinary) of 17 February 2010 at page 299 and superseding S.O.29/C.A.2/1899/S.9/2005 dated 6 June 2005, reduces by two percentage points the duty chargeable on an instrument under entry 23 of Schedule I-A when executed in favour of a female buyer. It was still the operative notification on 6 September 2026. Three limits matter. It applies to conveyance only — not to a gift, lease, mortgage, partition or power of attorney. It reduces the stamp duty alone, so the 1% cess, the 1% Board fee and the 0.25% Special Infrastructure Development Fee are payable in full and the saving on a Rs 1 crore deed is Rs 2 lakh, not Rs 2.25 lakh. And on a joint purchase, reporting from June 2018 says the rebate is allowed only in proportion to the woman's share and is recovered if she transfers the property to a male relative within a year; the amending notification behind that could not be traced, so ask the Sub-Registrar how it will be computed before you draw the stamp. PUNJAB — a family transfer may cost nothing at all. Order No. S.O.28/C.A.2/1899/S.9/2014 dated 7 May 2014, made under section 9(1)(a) of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, remits stamp duty IN WHOLE on an instrument transferring immovable property by an owner during his lifetime to a blood relation, expressly defined as children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters. If that is what is really happening, this sale deed is the wrong and expensive instrument. How to pay in Punjab: by e-stamp. Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd is the Central Record Keeping Agency and issues e-stamp certificates for amounts above Rs 49,999. Registration runs on Easy Registry, the Punjab NGDRS instance at easyregistry.punjab.gov.in, live in the Sub-Registrar offices of all twenty-two districts, where the parties book a slot and generate the challan; the e-stamp is locked against the deed at registration so that it cannot be re-used. The certificate must be drawn in the name of one of the parties to this deed — a certificate in a stranger's name is a defect. Do not buy it far in advance: by the Revenue Department's circular No. 07/15/2026-ST-2(PF-1)/10837 dated 11 July 2026, an e-Stamp Certificate left unlocked for more than four months is locked, and an e-Registration Receipt left unlocked for more than one month is locked, and unlocking is a case-by-case exercise. CHANDIGARH — 5% on a freehold sale, registration fee 1% capped at Rs 10,000, and nothing else. Stamp duty on a sale, gift, conveyance or sub-conveyance in the Union Territory is 5% on the value or the consideration, whichever is higher; the registration fee is 1% of the same figure subject to a maximum of Rs 10,000; the pasting fee is Rs 20. There is no Social Infrastructure Cess, no Infrastructure Development Board fee, no Special Infrastructure Development Fee and no concession for a female buyer — the Administration's own stamp duty calculator has no buyer-gender field at all. The widely repeated 'Chandigarh is 6%' is not supported by anything official: the Administration's published schedule at revenue.chd.gov.in says 5%, and the Administration's own calculator, run on 6 September 2026 for a 500 square yard residential plot in Sectors 1 to 12, returned a market value of Rs 3,91,25,000, stamp duty of Rs 19,56,250 — exactly 5.00% — and a registration fee of Rs 10,000, the cap. The honest caveat is about the schedule's age rather than its percentage: it bears no notification number, the page footer records a last update of 3 May 2022, and the notification that fixed 5% could not be traced, so the rate was confirmed at the counter of the Sub-Registrar, UT Chandigarh, 30 Bays Building, Sector 17 before the stamp was bought. CHANDIGARH — the 5% is for freehold, and this template is freehold only. The same published schedule charges a transfer of lease rights by way of sale, and a transfer of sub-lease rights by way of sale, at 3%. A leasehold Chandigarh site is therefore not merely a different instrument from this one, it is a cheaper one, and a buyer who executes this deed on a leasehold site pays 5% where 3% was chargeable and recites a tenure the site does not have. Establish the tenure from the Estate Office file before you buy any stamp. The same schedule charges a family settlement at 2% and an exchange at 3%, and exempts a transfer deed between blood relations from duty altogether, so check whether the transaction you are actually doing is a sale at all. How to pay in Chandigarh: by e-stamp, online, from your own computer. Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd is the Central Record Keeping Agency here too, and Chandigarh is one of the places where a citizen can make the payment online and print the e-Stamp certificate themselves from shcilestamp.com, using the Chandigarh application form for stamp duty of Rs 201 and above or the lower-denomination form up to Rs 200, with a separate form for additional duty. Chandigarh is also one of only eight States and Union Territories where the registration fee itself can be paid online as an e-Registration Fee. SHCIL's counter for both jurisdictions is at SCO 154-155, 2nd Floor, Deepak Tower, Sector 17-C. The Sub-Registrar's office at 30 Bays Building is entirely cashless. The Collector rate is the floor in both, and in Chandigarh the calculator lies about it. In Punjab the floor is the rate fixed for the revenue estate by the Deputy Commissioner as Collector, effective 1 April each year. In Chandigarh it is the District Collector's Schedule of Collector Rates effective 1 April 2026, published on 25 March 2026: residential Sectors 1 to 12 at Rs 2,37,900 per square yard, Sectors 14 to 37 at Rs 1,81,300, Sector 38 onwards at Rs 1,33,200, an independent dwelling unit at Rs 1,53,900, Housing Board flats at Rs 11,000 per square foot on the ground floor, Rs 9,000 first, Rs 8,000 second and Rs 7,200 third and above inclusive of the cost of construction, and commercial SCO/SCF in Sector 17 at Rs 5,92,200 per square yard, with 5% added for a corner plot. Take the value from that schedule and not from the online calculator: on 6 September 2026 the calculator was still valuing Sectors 1 to 12 at Rs 78,250 per square yard, more than a full revision cycle behind. For a built property outside the Housing Board scale the valuation is normally the land rate plus a separate construction rate adjusted for the age of the building, and applying the land rate alone is the commonest reason a deed comes back short-stamped years later. Writing a lower price in the deed does not lower the duty; it creates a false statement, and section 47-A of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 lets the registering officer refer an undervalued instrument to the Collector, who can demand the deficit with penalty and interest long after the sale.

Registration

COMPULSORY, and the transfer does not happen without it. Authority: section 17(1)(b) of the Registration Act, 1908, read with section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882. Place: the office of the Sub-Registrar within whose sub-district the property, or some part of it, lies — section 28. Not where the parties live, and never a notary's office. Time: present the deed within FOUR MONTHS of the date of execution — section 23. If that is missed, the Registrar may accept it within a further four months on a fine of up to ten times the proper registration fee — section 25. After eight months it cannot be registered at all, and the buyer is left with a suit for specific performance. Consequence of not registering — section 49: the document does not affect the property and cannot be received as evidence of any transaction affecting it; it survives only as evidence of a contract in a suit for specific performance or of a collateral transaction. Possession plus payment plus a notarised paper does not make you the owner. PUNJAB. The office is the Sub-Registrar or Joint Sub-Registrar of the tehsil in which the property lies — the Tehsildar and the Naib Tehsildar sitting as those officers ex officio, with the Deputy Commissioner as Registrar of the district and the Inspector General of Registration at Jalandhar above them. Book the slot on Easy Registry, the Punjab NGDRS instance at easyregistry.punjab.gov.in, which is live in the Sub-Registrar offices of all twenty-two districts; pay the stamp duty, the 1% cess, the 1% Board fee, the 0.25% Special Infrastructure Development Fee, the registration fee, the facilitation charges and the Rs 200 pasting fee against the challan; and attend with all sellers, all buyers and two witnesses. Photographs and biometrics of the parties and the witnesses are captured at the counter and the e-stamp is locked against the deed. Registration of a sale deed is a one-day notified service under the Punjab Transparency and Accountability in Delivery of Public Services Act, 2018 framework, with the Sub-Registrar as designated officer, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate as first appellate authority and the Deputy Commissioner as second; two extra days are added where the application is submitted through a Sewa Kendra. Registration fee is 1% capped at Rs 2,00,000. A certified copy of the registered document is a seven-day service; the non-encumbrance certificate, which the Sub-Registrar also issues, is a three-day service. What happens next in Punjab, and it does not happen by itself: the Sub-Registrar sends a Parcha Yadasht with a copy of the deed to the Office Kanungo at the Tehsildar's office; the Halqa Patwari enters the mutation (intkal) in the register of mutations; the Field Kanungo validates it; and the Circle Revenue Officer — a Tehsildar or Naib Tehsildar, all of whom are appointed Assistant Collectors of the second grade — sanctions or rejects it and recovers the mutation fee at attestation. That fee is Rs 600 on the Revenue Department's undated table retrieved on 6 September 2026, and by section 38(2) of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 it is payable by the person in whose favour the entry is made, that is the buyer, so ask at the counter what it now is. An uncontested mutation is a 45-day notified service; the Easy Jamabandi services launched on 13 June 2025 promise mutation within 30 days of registration, and it has not been established whether that shorter period is a notified limit you can appeal on or a launch commitment, so work to 45 days and ask. Failing to report the acquisition to the Patwari within three months exposes the buyer, under section 39, to a fine at the Collector's discretion of up to five times the mutation fee. Appeals in the mutation chain run under section 13 to the Collector within 30 days, the Commissioner within 60 and the Financial Commissioner within 90 — section 14. Remember what a mutation is and is not: by section 44 a jamabandi entry is presumed true until the contrary is proved, and by section 45 the aggrieved owner's remedy is a declaratory suit. The revenue chain moves entries. It does not confer title. Your title is this registered deed. CHANDIGARH. The office is the Sub-Registrar, UT Chandigarh, 30 Bays Building, Ground Floor, Rooms 1 and 2, Sector 17, near the Estate Office and adjoining the Central State Library. Its hours are fixed and narrow: presentation of documents between 12.00 noon and 1.00 pm, registration between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm. Financial transactions at that office are entirely cashless. Appointments, the e-registration payment and the deed search are on the Union Territory's revenue portal at revenue.chd.gov.in, which runs on the National Generic Document Registration System; the portal keeps two deed indexes, one for deeds registered up to 15 January 2025 and one from 16 January 2025, which is when it cut over. The Administration's page states that registered documents are delivered to the parties on the same day after registration, and separately that the office returns documents one week after presentation between 9.00 and 11.00 am; ask at the counter which applies to your deed. Registration fee is 1% capped at Rs 10,000, plus Rs 20 pasting. Number of copies in Chandigarh: a sale, transfer, gift or exchange deed of FREEHOLD urban property must be presented in TRIPLICATE. All other deeds in respect of freehold urban property go in duplicate. Photographs of the executants and the claimants must be affixed on every copy of the deed. This template is drawn for freehold property, so triplicate is the number it prints; the published checklist does not state a number for a transfer of lease rights, which is a different instrument and not this one. Chandigarh has two title tracks and the paperwork differs. For a site in a planned sector there is no jamabandi: the Estate Officer's file is the record, and what happens after registration happens automatically — which is precisely why the paperwork must be right at the counter. Since 2025 the Estate Office operates auto-mutation under a Standard Operating Procedure with checklists dated 10 July 2025: on registration, the deed and its data pass digitally from the Sub-Registrar to the Estate Office property management system, mutation is triggered with no application by the transferee, and an SMS goes to the transferee. Preliminary scrutiny by the Branch Clerk is to be completed within two hours for a leasehold case with a valid no-objection certificate and four hours for a freehold case. The buyer's affidavit-cum-indemnity bond is therefore filed at the Sub-Registrar's office with the deed — there is no later mutation window in which to file it. Change of ownership on a sale or gift deed is a 30-day notified service under Right to Service notification No. 28/67/1-IH(9)-2026/73238 dated 30 March 2026, with the Assistant Estate Officer as designated officer, the Estate Officer on first appeal and the Secretary Estate on second appeal. For a property in one of the Union Territory's revenue villages — Manimajra, or a lal dora or phirni area — none of that applies: there IS a jamabandi, kept by the Revenue Department of the Chandigarh Administration, the official registration checklist calls for a fard and a report of the Naib Tehsildar (Revenue), the Estate Office affidavit-cum-indemnity pack is not the right set of papers, and mutation is applied for and entered through the revenue office instead of being triggered automatically. Settle which track the property is on before you assemble the file. Chandigarh, before you can register at all. Because this template is for freehold property, the fifteen-year transfer bar and the one-third unearned increase under Rule 7 of the Chandigarh Estate Rules, 2007 and the ground rent under Rule 12 do not arise on an ordinary freehold sale — those are leasehold matters and a leasehold site needs a different instrument. But Rule 7(i) catches a site allotted at concessional rates as well as a leasehold one, so a concessionally allotted freehold site still cannot be transferred for fifteen years from allotment and still attracts one-third of the unearned increase under Rule 7(ii), assessed on notice and a hearing as the difference between the original premium enhanced at 9% per annum compounded and the current market value taken from the average auction price for the category over the last three financial years. Get the No Dues Certificate, a 15-day notified service, in hand. For a Chandigarh Housing Board flat the Board's own regime applies on top: the five-year lock-in from the date of physical possession must have expired, the allottee and the purchaser apply jointly under Regulation 16 of the 1979 Regulations, and the Board's transfer NOC and mutation are separately timed at 20 working days each. Carry to the registering office (both jurisdictions): the stamped deed in the number of copies required; the original prior title deeds and the earlier chain; PAN of all parties, or Form 60 where a party has no PAN; Aadhaar for the biometric capture; passport photographs; the latest property tax receipt; proof of TDS deposit — Form 26QB acknowledgement — where section 194-IA applies; the lender's no-objection certificate and the original deeds where a loan is being closed out of the price; and the association no-objection certificate and share certificate where the unit is in a society or association, noting that the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Punjab confirmed on 13 January 2026 that no society NOC is required for an individual member's conveyance. In Punjab add the current jamabandi or fard, from jamabandi.punjab.gov.in or a Fard Kendra, and the non-encumbrance certificate. In Chandigarh add, for a sector site, the Estate Office No Dues Certificate, the buyer's affidavit-cum-indemnity bond and a print of Know Your Dues from estateoffice.chd.gov.in; and for a revenue-village property, the fard and the Naib Tehsildar (Revenue) report instead.

Notarisation

Not required for the sale deed itself, and no substitute for registration. Notarisation of a sale deed adds nothing in law — a notarised but unregistered sale deed is caught squarely by section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908 and does not transfer title. Do not accept one, and do not let anyone tell you that a 'notarised registry' exists. It does not. Notarisation matters only for the documents that travel alongside this deed. For a Chandigarh sector property those are substantial and they are filed at registration, not afterwards, because auto-mutation leaves no later window: the buyer's affidavit-cum-indemnity bond, a seller's declaration where names differ across the Estate Office file and the identity documents, and any no-objection affidavit from a family member. Current Estate Office practice accepts a notarised affidavit in place of one attested by an Executive Magistrate, except where a law or a specific policy requires otherwise, and documents already on the Estate Office record need not be resubmitted. For a property in a Chandigarh revenue village the affidavit set is the revenue one — an affidavit of no encumbrance and, where the name on the fard differs from the identity documents, an affidavit of one-and-the-same-person. In Punjab the affidavits that commonly accompany a sale deed are the seller's affidavit of no encumbrance, an affidavit of one-and-the-same-person where the spelling of a name differs between the jamabandi and the identity documents, and, where the buyer is not the person named on an earlier mutation, an affidavit supporting the intkal request. A Form 60 declaration by a party to whom no PAN has been allotted also travels with the deed. A power of attorney used to sign this deed must be registered, not merely notarised. One executed abroad must be signed before the Indian embassy, consulate or high commission, or notarised locally and apostilled under the Hague Convention, and then stamped in India within three months of its receipt in India under section 18 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, before it can be acted upon. In Chandigarh, add the embossing requirement: any document prepared or executed outside India and used in an Estate Office transaction must first be embossed by the Office of the Finance Department, Chandigarh Administration.

Witnesses

Two witnesses, and they must attend the registration. Strictly, the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 does not require a sale deed to be attested — attestation by two witnesses is a statutory requirement for a mortgage deed under section 59 and a gift deed under section 123, not for a sale. But two witnesses are taken on every sale deed here, and independently of attestation the registering officer must satisfy himself of the identity of the persons appearing before him under section 34(3)(c) of the Registration Act, 1908. In Chandigarh the first witness is not a matter of choice. Under paragraph 127 of the Punjab Registration Manual, as applied at the Sub-Registrar, UT Chandigarh, the first witness must be a person of a specified class — in practice a Lambardar, Sarpanch or Member Panchayat for a property 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. A deed presented with two friends as witnesses will be turned back at the counter. In Punjab the two witnesses are adults who are not parties to the deed, who carry their own Aadhaar and photo identity, and whose photographs and biometrics are captured into the registration record at the Sub-Registrar's office alongside those of the parties. There is no first-witness class requirement, but the same practical rule applies: choose people who can be found again. A witness who cannot be traced years later is of no use when the execution is challenged. In both jurisdictions, record each witness's full name, parentage and address on the deed, and do not use the property broker as the sole witness or anyone who takes a benefit under the transaction. Where any party signs by thumb impression instead of a signature, the impression should be attested and the deed read over and explained to that party, with an endorsement to that effect on the deed.