IGR Maharashtra: what it is and how to actually use it

What the department actually does

Two jobs, and people conflate them. It collects stamp duty, which is a tax on the transfer of property. And it registers documents, which is the act of putting your transaction on the public record. You pay the first to be allowed to do the second, and a sale is not legally complete until both have happened.

The sub registrar office is where registration physically takes place. IGR is the department that sub registrar offices belong to.

The services worth knowing about

These are the modules on the portal, using the names they actually appear under, checked against the site on 1 September 2026. Government portals do rename things, so if a name below has moved, the service itself will still be there.

e-ASR is the Annual Statement of Rates. This is the ready reckoner: the government's own valuation for every area, used to work out stamp duty. If the agreement value is lower than this, duty is charged on this instead.

e-Search lets you search registered documents. This is how you find out what has previously been registered against a property, which matters more than most buyers realise.

e-Registration 2.0 is online registration for certain document types.

e-Leave and License registers a rent agreement online, without going to the office. Worth knowing if you are letting a flat, because a great many people still do this on paper unnecessarily.

e-Step In books your token, so you are not waiting at the sub registrar office without an appointment.

e-Praman issues digitally certified copies of registered documents.

Stamp duty refund handles claims where duty was paid and the transaction did not complete.

When you will actually use it

What we use it for before a client commits

Three things, every time.

The first is e-Search, for the flat's registered history. Every registered document produces an Index 2, and searching the property rather than the seller's name shows every one of them: each sale, mortgage, long lease, gift or release. It takes minutes and it is the first place a mismatch between the paper and the person shows up.

The second is the annual statement of rates, for the reckoner value of the specific building. Stamp duty is paid on the higher of the agreed price and this figure, so it is checked before a price is agreed, not after, and checked again if a deal runs past 1 April, when the rates change.

The third is the stamp duty calculator, so the buyer knows the whole outlay, duty plus registration, before committing to anything.

Where people go wrong using the portal themselves is predictable. Searching by name and missing a document because the spelling on the deed differs from the spelling they typed. Picking the wrong sub registrar office or the wrong year and concluding there is nothing to find. And treating the free e-Search download as a certified copy, which it is not: a bank or a court will want the certified copy from the sub registrar office.

Before you transact

Check the reckoner rate before you agree a price, and run an e-Search before you pay a token. Both are free and both put you in a stronger position at the table. If you would rather we did it for a flat you are considering in Borivali, Kandivali or Malad, send us the building and we will come back with what we find.