Land in Raigad is bought under more legal regimes than most buyers expect. One parcel can sit under revenue law, town planning law, coastal regulation and an eco-sensitive zone notification at once, with a different authority behind each. This is a checklist you can print and work through in order.
Title: the registered chain and the encumbrance certificate
Start with the registered deeds, not the 7/12. Ask for a thirty-year chain of registered documents and have an advocate prepare a search report on them at the Sub-Registrar's office.
A revenue record follows the title; it does not create it, and a registered sale deed or a court decree overrides a revenue entry. A search report tests whether every transfer was validly executed, whether the sellers had capacity, whether inheritance shares were accounted for, and whether anything went unregistered.
Get an encumbrance certificate from the Sub-Registrar for the same period. It shows what registered charges exist, and a bank charge never noted with the Talathi will not appear on a 7/12.
The 7/12 extract, the tenure class and the mutation history
Get the 7/12 for the specific sub-divided plot, not the parent survey or gat number. Four things on it matter.
- The holder's names. On an undivided family holding there are often several.
- The area, including any potkharaba shown separately.
- The tenure class. Class I is broadly unrestricted. Class II carries restrictions on transfer and usually needs the Collector's permission before a sale. If it shows Class II, ask to see the Collector's order, not an assurance that it will be obtained.
- The "other rights" column, carrying tenancies, mortgages, injunctions and past mutation references.
Then ask for the Ferfar entries for the last thirty years and match each to the deed it refers to. Registration and mutation are separate steps, and the gap between them is where problems hide. You want a clean sequence with no unexplained name and no entry without a deed.
The extract with legal standing is the digitally signed copy from digitalsatbara.mahabhumi.gov.in. The free copies on Mahabhulekh are watermarked for reference only.
The zone certificate, and the reservation line on it
A zone certificate is the only document that tells you what may lawfully be built on a survey number. It is a statement from the planning authority, under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act 1966, of the sanctioned land use zone and anything else the plan shows over that land.
Getting the authority right matters more here than almost anywhere in Maharashtra.
| Where the land is | Planning authority |
|---|---|
| Within Khopoli municipal limits | Khopoli Municipal Council |
| Khalapur villages outside those limits | MMR Extended Notified Area: MMRDA as Special Planning Authority, with development-permission powers delegated to the Raigad Collector from 3 January 2025 |
| Alibag and Pen taluka villages | MMR Extended Notified Area, same arrangement |
| Within Alibag or Karjat municipal limits | The respective Municipal Council |
| Karjat taluka outside municipal limits | Under the MMR Regional Plan 2016-36. Karjat is not in the MMR Extended Notified Area |
The MMR Extended Notified Area was declared on 9 July 2024, covering about 1,681 sq km and 223 villages in the Alibag, Pen, Panvel and Khalapur talukas. Preparation of a Development Plan for it was declared on 18 September 2025, so the planning position there is live rather than settled. A zone certificate has no official validity period. Treat it as accurate on its date and refresh it if a long gap opens before registration.
Read the reservation line twice. A reservation is a public purpose designated over private land: a road widening line, a school site, a garden. It does not stop the surrounding land being residentially zoned. It stops you building on the reserved part of your plot.
A certificate issued by a body that does not govern your survey number is a piece of paper. Confirm who the authority is before you ask anyone for anything else.
Non-agricultural status, under both regimes
Ask which regime the plot's NA position was established under. The route changed at the end of 2025.
Under the older position, conversion to non-agricultural use required a separate NA order and an NA Sanad. GR NAP-2023/Pra.Kra.64/J-1A dated 13 March 2024 had already provided that no separate NA permission was needed where the use was permitted under the Development Plan or Regional Plan, with the Sanad issued after construction permission.
The Maharashtra Land Revenue Code (Second Amendment) Act, 2025, notified 31 December 2025 and operationalised by a Revenue and Forest Department GR dated 10 February 2026, dispenses with the separate NA step where the use matches the plan, abolishes NA assessment and conversion tax, and introduces a one-time conversion premium banded by plot size. Class II tenure restrictions are unchanged.
Two cautions. The detail of the 2025 reform comes from legal commentary rather than a retrievable Gazette notification, so ask to see the GR. And the reform removed a revenue step, not a zone. If the plan shows the parcel as agricultural, it remains agricultural, and no NA receipt turns it into a housing plot.
Access, road width and the physical measurement
Confirm in writing that the plot has legal access, and find the width of the road serving it. A right of way that exists in practice but not on paper is not access.
Ask for the access road's status on the sanctioned plan, whether it is public or an internal layout road, whether it has been handed over, and its width. Road width governs what may be built under the applicable development control regulations.
Then have the plot measured against the 7/12 area and the sub-division, and walk the boundaries with a surveyor. Discrepancies between recorded and measured area are common on sub-divided agricultural land, and so are boundary encroachments nobody mentions. It is an afternoon's work and the cheapest item on this list.
CRZ and eco-sensitive zone, where they apply
Coastal land in Raigad is governed by the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2019, and Maharashtra's Coastal Zone Management Plans have been realigned from CRZ 2011 to CRZ 2019. This applies to Alibag taluka and to any parcel near a creek or tidal water body. Ask for the plot's CRZ classification in writing, from the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority or through the planning authority.
Do not accept a setback distance quoted from memory. No Development Zone distances vary by CRZ category and by the plan applicable to that stretch of coast, and this page publishes no metre figure because none was verifiable for Alibaug.
Parts of Karjat taluka sit under the Matheran Eco-Sensitive Zone. The Matheran ESZ portion of the MMR Regional Plan was sanctioned separately on 7 August 2019, and a Zonal Master Plan for the Matheran ESZ 2016-36 exists. The list of villages inside the ESZ could not be verified, so none is named here. Ask the planning authority whether the survey number is inside it. Note also that UDCPR does not apply inside eco-sensitive regions notified by MoEF&CC, nor inside NAINA, MIDC, the JNPT area, Hill Station Municipal Councils or Lonavala Municipal Council.
What it costs to register
Stamp duty on land registration in the Mumbai 3.0 area is 5%, charged on the higher of the agreement value or the Ready Reckoner value, plus a 1% registration fee capped at ₹30,000. Where the women's concession applies, stamp duty falls to 4%.
Ready Reckoner rates for FY 2026-27 were frozen, unchanged from 2025-26, effective 1 April 2026, as announced on 31 March 2026. The previous revision, now carried forward, ranged from 3.36% in rural areas to 5.95% in municipal corporation areas, a statewide average widely reported at 3.9%.
Raigad contains both municipal-council and gram-panchayat pockets, and no Annual Statement of Rates land value is published for Khalapur, Karjat or Alibag. Confirm the rate and the Ready Reckoner value for your survey number in writing with the Sub-Registrar before you transact.
The print-and-carry list
- Thirty-year registered title chain and an advocate's search report.
- Encumbrance certificate from the Sub-Registrar.
- Digitally signed 7/12 for the sub-divided plot, tenure class read.
- Collector's order permitting transfer, if the tenure is Class II.
- Ferfar entries for thirty years, matched to registered deeds.
- Zone certificate and part plan from the correct planning authority.
- Written confirmation of which body issues development permission there.
- NA order and Sanad, or the post-2025 permission, with the GR.
- Reservation position, from the zone certificate.
- Legal access and road width, on the sanctioned plan.
- CRZ classification in writing, for coastal or creek-side land.
- ESZ position in writing, for land near Matheran.
- Physical measurement and boundary walk against the record.
- Written confirmation of stamp duty and the Ready Reckoner value.
A seller who can produce most of this quickly has done the work. One who cannot is telling you something.