Buying Property Under Litigation: Lis Pendens and the Court-Case Search

An owner may lawfully sell a flat, house or plot even while a lawsuit over it is running, and the purchaser simply inherits the lawsuit. Lawyers call this lis pendens, and the source is the 1882 Transfer of Property Act, in its Section 52. Below: how it works, why clean documents prove little, and what a Bangalore buyer should search before paying.

A Doctrine Built to Protect Court Orders

The Latin words mean an undecided dispute. It is triggered when a civil court is hearing a case about rights in immovable property. While the case lasts, neither litigant may pass the property to anyone in a way that would hurt the other litigant's position under the eventual decree, unless the court agrees.

Think about the alternative. A person about to lose could sell to a stranger the day before judgment, and the winner would have to start over against a new defendant. By keeping the property attached to the case, the law makes sure a decree can be enforced.

The clock starts on the day the plaint reaches the court. It keeps running through each appeal and stops only when the decree has been fully carried out. So a purchase made after the first court's judgment, with an appeal still alive, is caught too.

Consequences for the Person Who Pays

The sale itself is not cancelled. Between the two parties it is valid, yet the decree travels with it, so the buyer is left with whatever share the court finally recognises as the seller's own.

Suppose a house passes from a parent to three children and one of them sues for a one-third share. Another child sells the whole house during the hearing. Should the court uphold the claim, the buyer loses that third, and the only recourse is to chase the seller for the money.

A buyer cannot plead innocence. The Supreme Court has said in more than one decision that the decree binds a buyer who never knew of the suit. The burden of searching rests on the person paying.

Why a Clean Encumbrance Certificate Is Not Enough

An encumbrance certificate lists transactions that were registered with the sub-registrar, among them sales, mortgages, releases and leases. Court proceedings never get registered there. A certificate can therefore stay blank while a suit is running.

Some states let a notice of the suit be registered and treat that notice as the trigger for binding buyers. Karnataka has no such step, and the rule applies to a buyer here regardless. If a court forwards an attachment order to the registrar it may be noted, yet ordinary suits leave no mark.

Tax receipts, khata and RTC extracts are no help either. They tell the reader who pays tax and whose name is in the land records. Whether a civil court is hearing a case never appears in them.

Running a Litigation Search

Property fights are not confined to one court. A lawyer therefore checks several places, as set out below.

• Civil courts of the district or city: search the eCourts status service under the seller's name and the names of prior owners
• Karnataka High Court: its own case lookup, by name of party, reaches appeals and writs
• Revenue offices: proceedings about mutation or land grants, which are heard by the Tahsildar and by higher revenue officers
• State RERA authority: look for complaints about the promoter or project when the home is bought from a builder
• Debts Recovery Tribunal: look for suits where banks seek repayment from the owner or builder

The eCourts service accepts a party name, a case number, an advocate's name or a filing year. The same name can be written in several forms. So the lawyer tries every version of the seller's name, the name of the seller's father and those of earlier owners, then repeats the search where the property's local court complex is concerned.

Name searches have a blind spot. Because the property is described only inside the plaint, a suit against a previous owner, or one filed with a stray spelling, may never surface. The lawyer covers this gap with the next three steps.

Three More Ways to Smoke Out a Dispute

The first is a caveat, a notice that a person who expects a rival to move the court can lodge under CPC Section 148A. It asks the judge to hear that person before passing orders, and it lasts 90 days. A caveat naming the seller or the plot suggests trouble is brewing.

The second is a newspaper notice. The buyer's lawyer prints the property details in one English and one Kannada paper and invites claims within a fixed period. The law does not require it, yet it often draws out heirs, lenders and holders of old agreements.

The third is plain enquiry. Neighbours, residents' welfare groups and the village accountant tend to hear about family quarrels and boundary rows long before any register does.

Where Litigation Is Most Likely

Disputes gather where several people can say a property is theirs. A closer search is justified in these cases.

• Property that came down through inheritance, where a daughter, a brother or a second family might want a share
• Land that once changed hands on a general power or by an agreement left unregistered
• A property whose earlier sale agreement was called off or never finished
• Land that came from a government grant or is being acquired
• A project whose landowners and builder have fallen out
• A property that carries a bank or private loan

A new apartment in a registered project faces less of this risk as far as the flat is concerned. The land under it could still be contested, so the lawyer's report ought to take in any suits against the landowners.

Precautions That Cost Little

Each of these adds little to the legal fee, and all belong in a normal title check.

1. Have the lawyer put the litigation search in writing, naming the seller and each owner within the title period.
2. Obtain an encumbrance certificate for 30 years or more, but count it as only one safeguard.
3. Issue the newspaper notice, and hold back the balance until the claim period is over.
4. Add a clause to the sale agreement declaring that nothing is pending in court against the property, whether suit, appeal or attachment, with an indemnity behind it.
5. Ask each adult relative who might claim a share to join the deed as a consenting party.
6. With a loan, ask whether the bank's lawyer included a court search in the report.

When a case turns up, either wait for the last decision or pick another property. A promise that the matter will be compromised soon is no comfort, because the decree reaches the buyer either way. For approved and RERA-registered homes in the city, reach out to us.