Before you buy a plot in Tamil Nadu: the order to check things in

Buying a plot is not one decision. It is a series of small checks, and the order matters: some of them are cheap and quick, and they can save you the cost of the slow ones.

Start with the layout approval, not the plot

Before looking at an individual plot, look at the layout it sits in. A sanctioned layout has an approval number issued by a planning authority, and that approval is what makes the plot a legally recognised plot rather than a piece of a larger field someone has drawn lines on.

Ask for the approval number and the sanctioned plan. Then check that the plan you are shown is the plan that was approved — the plot numbering, the road widths and the open space should match.

Then the title, and the chain behind it

The seller should be able to show how they came to own the land, and that chain should be continuous. A sale deed on its own tells you about one transaction; the earlier deeds tell you whether that transaction was the seller's to make.

Then the revenue records

Ownership in the deed and ownership in the government's revenue record should agree. Where they do not, ask why before you go further — the explanation is sometimes ordinary and sometimes not.

Then encumbrance

An encumbrance certificate lists the registered transactions against a property for a period you specify. What you are looking for is anything you were not told about: a mortgage, an earlier agreement, an attachment.

Then the physical plot

Only now is it worth spending a morning on site. Walk the plot against the plan. Check that the road in front of it is the width the plan says, that the plot's corners are where the layout puts them, and that nothing has been built or planted on it by someone else.

Then the things that decide whether you enjoy owning it

• How the plot faces, and what that means for building on it
• Whether water and power reach the layout, and who maintains the roads
• What is being built around it, and what the land beside it is zoned for
• How you would actually reach it on a working morning

What a good answer looks like

A seller who has done this properly will not be irritated by the questions. The documents will be ready, the numbers on them will match each other, and you will be told plainly where something is still in progress. Hesitation on a basic document is itself an answer.