The Encumbrance Certificate or EC in AP is one of the most searched and downloaded documents in real estate.
In this post, we will see:
- What is an Encumbrance Certificate?
- Which properties can be found in Encumbrance Certificate in AP?
- How to download EC in AP?
- How to Read an Encumbrance Certificate?
- Uses of Encumbrance Certificate
- What is Nil EC?
- What are some other important documents in AP?
What is an Encumbrance Certificate in AP?
Encumbrance Certificate tells you the total history of a property’s buying, selling and transfers that have been registered with the registration department.
Encumbrance Certificate in Andhra Pradesh is used to find if there are any ‘encumbrances’ like loans, claims, double registrations etc. on the property.
Currently, the ECs in AP that are available online only have data from 1980 onwards. This is because the property records before 1983 have not yet been digitized. For any transactions and registration documents before 1983, you will have to enquire with the concerned sub-registrar office.
Which properties can be found in Encumbrance Certificate in AP?
Since the Encumbrance Certificate is downloaded from the registration department, it usually covers only non-agricultural properties. Sometimes we may find details of agricultural properties in the encumbrance certificate, but mostly not.
For any agricultural property, the documents to check are the Adangal and ROR 1-B (Record of Rights). These documents contain information about land owner, nature of land, and any remarks from the government.
How to download EC in AP?
In AP, the EC can be downloaded from the Registration and Stamps Department if you know your document number.
The fastest way to download EC is by using the Landeed mobile app. Using Landeed you can download AP EC using survey number or document number.
Download Encumbrance Certificate (EC) using Survey No.
- Download the Landeed App: India's Fastest Online Document Search
- Choose Andhra Pradesh State > Encumbrance Certificate
- Choose Survey No.
- Start typing your Village and Division and choose from one of the options. Example: Eluru (R), Eluru (R.O), Eluru
- Enter your Survey Number. Example: 1
- Click Search
- Click Full EC to download
Download Encumbrance Certificate (EC) using Document No.
- Download the Landeed App: India's Fastest Online Document Search
- Choose Andhra Pradesh State > Encumbrance Certificate
- Choose Document No.
- Choose your Sub-Registrar Office
- Type the Document Number. This is usually a 4-digit number.
- Type the Registration Year. Example: 2011
- Click Search
- Click Full EC to download
How to read Andhra Pradesh EC (Encumbrance Certificate)?
Each row in the EC is a description of the transaction that has happened on the property.
All Encumbrance Certificates (ECs) have 5 columns:
Description of Property:
Here you can find information like
- House/Door No. of the property
- Ward of the property
- Plot No. of the Property
- Survey No. of the Property,
- Extant or Area of the Property,
- Boundaries of the property: a small description of properties in each direction (North, South, East and West)
- Village/Colony of the property
Here you will also find the Link Document number. This is the document that links the current transaction to a previous transaction.
Registration, Execution, and Presentation Date
Registration date is the date on which the document was officially signed by the Sub-registrar, and was entered into the official database.
Execution date is the date on which the Sale deed was put into effect.
Presentation refers to the date on which this transaction was presented to the Sub-Registrar.
Usually, the Registration, Execution and Presentation are the same date.
Nature of Deed, Market Value, Consideration Value
The type of transaction and deed is recorded in the nature section. Some values you can find:
- Sale Deed: this is the most common type of deed, and is used when there’s a direct sale of the property.
- Lease Deed: is used when the property is being leased.
- Deposit of Title Deed/Mortgage Deed: used when the property is being kept as collateral for financial purposes.
- Gift Deed: used when the property is being gifted from 1 party to another. It is often used at the time of succession from one generation to another generation in the family.
- Release Deed: used when the claims to a property are being released. This is used in times of succession as well as in mortgages.
- Market Value, also known as guideline value, is the base price of the property as per the government. It is used to calculate the stamp duty and registration fees.
- Consideration Value is the price of the property actually paid by the buyer.
Name of Parties Executant (EX) & Claimants (CL)
In the case of direct sale of a property, we usually find the terms EX and CL. EX means Executant - the person or people selling the property. CL means Claimants - they are receiving the property.
There are other short forms that can be found here, such as: (MR), (ME), (LR), (LE), (RR), (RE) and more. You can understand the meaning of each in this blog post: Understanding Terms in Encumbrance Certificate.
Volume/Page No and Document Number
As mentioned earlier, each row in an Encumbrance Certificate shows one transaction. Each transaction happens based on the deed (eg sale deed, or lease deed). The last column of the EC contains the document number of this deed, along with the year of registration and SRO in which it has been registered.
EC (Encumbrance Certificate) vs Adangal
While Encumbrance Certificate is an important document, it’s mainly useful for non-agricultrual properties.
The Adangal is a document which is used for agricultural properties. The Adangal describes land details like: name of the farmer, nature of land, cultivation details etc.
It’s good practice to try downloading both the EC and the Adangal. In Andhra Pradesh especially, there are many properties which have been converted from agricultural to non-agricultural, so having Adangal along with EC is a good way to get full history of the land.
Nil EC
If there are no transactions recorded on the property within the given timeframe, a Nil EC is returned.
However, this doesn’t mean that there are no transactions - it simply means that the system has no recorded transactions.
In what cases can you receive a Nil EC?
- If transactions happened before 1983 or it’s an ancestral property - in this case, the system has no record of any transactions and will show a nil EC.
- Wrong search parameters - Let’s say you searched by survey number, but the system recorded only your plot no. and not the survey no. In this case you will receive a nil EC - but the system has your transaction! You simply searched for the wrong parameter. To be sure, always try multiple searches with different parameters
Uses of Encumbrance Certificate
Encumbrance Certificates (ECs) are most often used by Lawyers, Real Estate Brokers, and Loan or Bank agents.
- When selling a property, ECs are the first documents that are checked by buyers and real estate brokers
- When giving a legal opinion for loans or mortgages, lawyers always check the encumbrance certificate to check if there are any pending issues on the property
- Since ECs contain a list of all transactions, market researchers also use it to find the price trends of properties
Other documents required apart from EC
While ECs are the first document that is checked for any property, you still need to check other important documents.
- Adangal and RoR 1-B give the details of agricultural properties, like name of land owner, type of soil, nature of land and cultivation details
- Prohibited Lands report gives the details of all the survey numbers which are prohibited by the government
- Table of Land Disputes reports gives the details of all the survey numbers in a village that are under some dispute
- FMB/LP Maps gives a map of the survey number in the overall village
If you’re buying, selling or doing any other deals on property, make sure to check all the available documents and not just rely on the EC.
Conclusion
The Encumbrance Certificate in Andhra Pradesh is a crucial document to know the entire history of a property. It is usually available only for non-agricultural properties. For agricultural properties, we can check the Adangal and RoR 1-B.
The Encumbrance Certificate has multiple terms and document numbers, and we need to understand each term and their meanings.
A Nil EC doesn’t always mean that there are no transactions. We should check all possible search parameters before accepting a Nil EC.
Landeed is India’s Fastest Online Document Search for any property documents. You can get documents across 20+ states in India. Landeed is used by more than 10 lakh Indians to secure their property documents online.
For Andhra Pradesh documents, use the Landeed app to download EC (Encumbrance Certificate) online, order Certified Copy of Sale Deed, download Adangal, download RoR 1-B, download table of disputed lands, get Market Value, list of Prohibited Lands.
