The booking amount is not the decision
Most people treat the booking amount as a small, reversible step. It rarely is. Once it is paid you are negotiating from inside the deal rather than outside it, and the clauses that matter have usually already been set by the agreement you are about to sign.
Almost everything worth checking can be checked before that point. What follows is the list we work through on behalf of a buyer, in the order we work through it.
Start with the RERA registration, not the brochure
Any project of meaningful size has to be registered with the Karnataka Real Estate Regulatory Authority, and the registration is public. The registration page carries the approved plan, the declared completion date, and the quarterly progress the builder has filed.
Two things are worth doing here. First, confirm the registration number on the brochure actually matches a live entry. Second, and more useful, read the progress updates against the sales pitch. A project being sold as nearly ready that has filed modest progress for three consecutive quarters is telling you something the show flat is not.
Check which phase or tower the registration covers. In a large development, phases are registered separately, and the reassuring number on the hoarding may belong to a phase that is already complete rather than the one you are buying into.
The encumbrance certificate tells you who else has a claim
An encumbrance certificate lists the transactions registered against the land. What you are looking for is whether the land is genuinely free of claims, and whether any loan taken against it has been closed or is still outstanding.
Pull it for a meaningful period rather than the last year, and read the chain of ownership rather than only the most recent entry. A break or an unexplained transfer in that chain is the kind of thing that surfaces years later, at the point where you are trying to sell.
If the land was agricultural at any stage, confirm the conversion was completed properly. This is common in the corridors where most new supply is being built, and it is not a problem when it has been done correctly. It is a serious problem when it has not.
Khata, and why the letter matters
Khata is the municipal record that says the property exists as a taxable unit in your name. It is not proof of ownership on its own, but you will need it for a loan, for utility connections, and for any future sale.
Ask which khata the property will have and when it will be issued. Ask specifically, because the answer is often vaguer than the question. A property whose khata is expected to be resolved at some point after handover is a property with an open item on it, and you should know that before you commit rather than during your move.
Compare the approved plan to what you were shown
The sanctioned plan is a public document, and it is the version that has actually been approved. The marketing layout is not always the same drawing.
Look for the things that change quietly: the number of towers, the position of the tower you are buying in, the location of the driveway and the generator, and whether the amenity block in the render is on the approved plan at all. A clubhouse that exists only in the brochure is a clubhouse that can be delayed indefinitely without anyone breaching anything.
Check the floor your unit is on against the approved height of the tower. Approvals are sometimes granted for fewer floors than are being sold.
Read the agreement for the four clauses that decide everything
The agreement is long and most of it is standard. Four parts of it are not, and they are worth reading properly or having read for you.
The possession date, and whether it is a date or a date plus a grace period plus conditions. The penalty clause, and whether the compensation for a delay by the builder is symmetrical with the interest you pay for a delay by you. It very often is not.
The exit terms, meaning what you actually get back and on what timeline if you withdraw. And the definition of area, because the difference between carpet area, built up area and super built up area is the difference between the space you paid for and the space you live in.
Ask what is included in the quoted figure and what is billed separately at handover. Registration, statutory charges, the maintenance deposit, parking, and infrastructure charges add up to a number large enough to change your plans if you first hear about it at the end.
Look at the builder's last completed project, not the current one
The most reliable indicator of what handover will feel like is a project by the same builder that was handed over three or four years ago. Go and see it. The lobby, the lifts, the water supply, the state of the common areas and whether the association is functioning tell you more than any presentation.
If you can, speak to someone living there. The question worth asking is not whether they are happy. It is how long the snag list took to close, and what the builder was like once the money had been paid.
Visit at the time you will actually live there
A site visit on a Sunday morning is a visit to a different place from the one you will occupy. Go on a weekday evening. Drive the last two kilometres of the approach yourself rather than being driven. Notice what the road is like, where the water comes from, what is being built next door, and what the plot behind the project is zoned for.
Stand in a unit facing the same direction as the one you are being sold, at roughly the same height, and listen. Noise and light are the two things nobody checks and everybody notices afterwards.
Where we come in
This is the work we do for buyers before a booking, and it is the reason our service costs you nothing extra: going direct to a site office does not get you a better rate, it just removes the person in the room whose job is to represent your side of it.
If you are close to booking something and want a second pair of eyes on the paperwork first, send us the project name. We will tell you what we find, including when what we find is that it is fine.
Want this done on a specific project?
Send us the project name and we will work through it with you before you pay anything.