Property fraud: the patterns and how to avoid them
Property fraud is not usually sophisticated. It succeeds because buyers skip steps under time pressure, pay before verifying, or trust a document they never checked against a source. The patterns repeat, and almost all of them are defeated by diligence a competent lawyer would do as a matter of course.
Selling what you do not own
The oldest pattern is someone selling property they have no right to sell, whether by impersonating an owner, using forged documents, or acting under a power of attorney that was revoked or never valid.
This is defeated by a proper title search and by verifying the seller's identity against the title documents rather than accepting them at face value. Our note on title verification covers the process.
Powers of attorney deserve particular attention. Verify that it exists, that it is registered where required, that it actually authorises a sale, and that it has not been revoked. Our note on power of attorney in Maharashtra covers the requirements.
Where the seller is abroad or represented, the diligence should be more careful rather than less, which is the opposite of what convenience pressure usually produces.
- Impersonation, forged documents and invalid powers of attorney
- Defeated by a proper title search and identity verification
- Verify a power of attorney exists, is registered and is unrevoked
- Representation should raise diligence, not relax it
Selling the same property twice
A seller takes money from more than one buyer, sometimes registering with one and stringing the other along, sometimes taking token amounts from several.
The protection is registration and the public record. A search at the sub-registrar establishes what has actually been registered, and paying meaningful money before that search is done is the exposure.
Encumbrance checks over a period reveal registered dealings, which is why the search should cover a proper span rather than only the most recent transaction.
The practical rule is simple: verify before you pay anything substantial, and pay by traceable means so that what you paid and when is not in dispute.
Approvals that do not exist
Projects marketed and sold before approvals are obtained, or with approvals for something different from what is being built, are a persistent problem.
MahaRERA registration is the first filter, and our explainer covers what it does and does not confirm. Verify the registration on the authority's own records rather than accepting a number printed in a brochure.
Check the sanctioned plan and commencement certificate, and check that what is being built matches what was approved. Extra floors or altered layouts beyond approval are a category of problem buyers discover at occupancy.
Where a project is complete, the occupancy certificate is the check, and our note on what an occupancy certificate proves covers why its absence matters more than sellers admit.
- Verify MahaRERA registration on the authority's records, not the brochure
- Check the sanctioned plan and commencement certificate
- Confirm what is built matches what was approved
- For completed buildings, the occupancy certificate is the test
Land classification and the outer belts
In Navi Mumbai's outer belts specifically, the recurring fraud is land sold as something it is not: agricultural land presented as converted, gaothan land presented as CIDCO-allotted, or plots sold in layouts that were never approved.
Our guides to gaothan versus CIDCO plots and spotting fake CIDCO plot claims cover these specifically, and our note on plot versus flat explains why the plot market carries structurally more of this risk.
The check is the revenue record and the conversion order, verified from the source rather than from a copy the seller provides.
Buyers who cannot personally read these documents should engage someone who can. This is precisely the situation where the cost of a lawyer is trivial against the exposure.
Money going to the wrong place
Payments diverted away from the designated project account are a real problem, and buyers frequently cooperate with it because the request is presented as routine or as a way to save something.
For an under-construction purchase, pay only into the designated account. Our note on the RERA escrow rule covers why that account exists.
Requests for cash components are a warning regardless of the justification offered. Beyond the legal exposure, cash paid is money you cannot prove you paid, which removes your position entirely if anything goes wrong.
Insist that every rupee is traceable and receipted. Buyers who accept an informal element have usually already lost the argument they will later need to make.
- Pay under-construction instalments only into the designated account
- Treat any cash request as a warning, whatever the justification
- Untraceable payment removes your position in a dispute
- Insist on receipts for everything
The pressure that makes people skip steps
Almost every fraud relies on urgency. Another buyer is interested, the price rises tomorrow, the offer expires this evening, the token must be paid today to hold it.
That pressure is sometimes genuine and frequently manufactured, and the buyer cannot tell the difference in the moment. What they can do is refuse to let urgency substitute for verification.
A property genuinely worth having will survive the time it takes to check it. A seller unwilling to allow that time is telling you something useful.
Our note on the biggest mistakes buyers make covers the broader pattern, of which this is the most expensive instance.
The diligence that defeats nearly all of it
Engage your own lawyer, acting for you, before paying anything meaningful. Not the developer's, not the agent's recommendation without your own check.
Verify from sources rather than copies: the registration record, the authority's own database, the revenue record, the society's own confirmation.
Pay traceably, receipt everything, and never into an account other than the one the agreement specifies.
And keep the whole record. Our resale flat checklist covers the document set for a resale, and our note on the registration process covers doing the transaction itself properly.
