Anyone registering a flat purchase, a home loan mortgage or a family partition deed in Maharashtra now has to clear Aadhaar-based identity verification first. Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule announced on Wednesday that the requirement took effect on October 1 and covers 63 categories of documents handled by the Registration and Stamps Department, Punekar News reported. The department notified the change in the official gazette, according to The Live Nagpur.
Why the state closed the ‘skip’ option
Aadhaar verification at sub-registrar offices has existed for years, but as an optional step. Officials could press a “skip” button and finish a registration without it. In July, the Inspector General of Registration and Stamps proposed removing that button after department investigations found people had used it to push through fraudulent deals, including transfers of government land and sale deeds signed with forged papers and fake identities, as Outlook Money and Punekar News reported at the time.
Three months later, the state has notified it. The state says it wants to shut out impersonators and “fictitious witnesses” and cut the manual discretion that sub-registrars exercise at the counter. Uttar Pradesh made a similar move in February 2026, so Maharashtra joins a growing list of states tying land records to Aadhaar.
What changes at the sub-registrar’s counter
The rule reaches well beyond flat purchases. The 63 document types include sale deeds, purchase agreements, mortgages and partition deeds, which together account for most of the registrations an ordinary family will ever do. Before you book a slot:
- Check that your Aadhaar works. Make sure the mobile number linked to it is active and your biometrics are up to date. An authentication failure on the day can delay a registration that buyer, seller and bank have spent weeks lining up.
- No Aadhaar yet? You can still register. The government says you must bring the acknowledgement receipt of your Aadhaar enrolment application, another government-issued photo ID, and documents showing your relationship to the other parties in the deal.
- Minors: A parent or legal guardian has to produce the child’s Aadhaar enrolment application along with consent, The Daily Jagran reported.
The government has said eligible people can’t be denied registration only because they lack an Aadhaar number. Reports so far don’t say how the rule applies to non-resident Indians, foreign nationals or companies signing through authorised representatives. If you fall into one of those groups, ask the sub-registrar’s office or your lawyer before the appointment rather than on the day.
What it means for buyers and sellers
For honest buyers, the change adds one step and some protection. Property fraud in Maharashtra often works through impersonation: a stranger poses as the owner of an ageing parent’s plot or a long-locked flat and sells it with a forged ID. A live biometric or OTP check against the owner’s own Aadhaar makes that harder to pull off.
The rule won’t catch every fraud. It confirms that the person at the counter matches an Aadhaar record. It can’t confirm that the person owns the property, so title searches and encumbrance checks stay as important as before.
Elderly sellers and people in rural talukas may feel the friction first. Fingerprint matching is known to fail more often for older people and manual labourers, and anyone whose Aadhaar is still tied to a lapsed mobile number will need to update it before an OTP check can work.
What to watch
The first weeks will show whether sub-registrar offices can handle authentication failures without long queues, and whether the department publishes clearer guidance for NRIs and companies. Watch for any data on how many fraudulent registrations the check stops; the government cited fraud cases when it proposed the rule but has not released figures.
Sources: Punekar News, The Live Nagpur, The Daily Jagran, Outlook Money
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.