For families with agricultural land in Karnataka, managing inheritance from another state or country may soon become easier.
The Karnataka government has simplified the procedure for transferring inherited agricultural land records into the names of legal heirs who live outside the state.
The Revenue Department amended the guidelines for Pauti Khata, the process used to mutate agricultural land records after the death of a landowner. The changes are aimed at helping legal heirs living in other states and abroad complete the process with fewer administrative hurdles.
Under the revised procedure, legal heirs who permanently live outside Karnataka can apply for the transfer of inherited agricultural land records.
They can submit a digitally issued family tree certificate, legal heir certificate or succession certificate issued by a competent authority or civil court.
The documents must be translated into English.
Applicants must also submit a notarised affidavit on ₹100 stamp paper.
The change is particularly relevant to families whose members have moved to other parts of India or overseas but continue to have ancestral agricultural land in Karnataka.
The revised process also brings stronger digital verification into the system.
Indian legal heirs listed in the family tree must provide their Aadhaar details and complete e-KYC authentication through OTP or biometric verification.
Foreign citizens are treated differently.
They are not required to complete Aadhaar-based e-KYC. Instead, they can submit copies of their passports.
This creates a clearer process for families where some heirs are Indian citizens and others are foreign citizens.
The rules provide a specific procedure for families in which every legal heir holds foreign citizenship.
In such cases, a succession certificate issued by a civil court remains mandatory.
Applicants must submit their request in person at the local Nada Kacheri in the relevant hobli.
They must also provide passport copies and notarised documents supporting the succession certificate, death certificate and family tree.
This means the process is simpler in some situations, but it does not remove the legal documentation required for foreign-citizen heirs.
A different process applies when only some members of the family are foreign citizens.
Indian-citizen heirs can obtain the family tree certificate and begin the mutation process on behalf of the family.
This can make the process easier for families that are spread across different countries.
It also reduces the need for every family member to travel to Karnataka simply to begin the land-record transfer.
Once the application is submitted at the relevant hobli Nada Kacheri, the supporting documents will be uploaded into the e-Pauti software by the village administration officer.
The application can then be processed under the existing rules.
The Revenue Department has also instructed officials to update the software infrastructure to support the revised procedure.
This digital step is important because land-record administration is increasingly moving towards online systems.
Agricultural land is often passed from one generation to the next.
However, families are no longer necessarily based in the same village, district or even country.
A landowner may have children working in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Dubai, Singapore, the United States or other parts of the world.
When an owner dies, updating land records can therefore become complicated if the legal heirs are geographically dispersed.
The Karnataka government’s revised procedure is intended to address this problem.
Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, who holds the Revenue portfolio, said the simplified rules would benefit people living in other states and abroad.
Pauti Khata refers to the process of transferring agricultural land records from a deceased landowner to the names of the rightful legal heirs.
Keeping land records updated is important.
When ownership records remain in the name of a deceased person for years, future transactions and succession matters can become more complicated.
Updating the records helps establish the current legal heirs in the government’s land records.
The latest change also reflects a broader challenge facing agricultural families.
Many younger generations have moved away from their ancestral villages.
Some now work in cities.
Others live overseas.
Yet they may still inherit agricultural land from their parents or grandparents.
A simpler administrative process can make it easier for such families to maintain proper records of inherited farmland.
The change should not be misunderstood as a blanket relaxation of Karnataka’s agricultural land ownership laws.
The August 2026 reform concerns the mutation of inherited agricultural land records through Pauti Khata.
It does not mean that anyone living outside Karnataka can freely purchase agricultural land.
Inheritance, land-record mutation and purchase are separate legal matters.
Anyone dealing with a specific property should therefore verify the applicable land, succession and foreign-exchange rules before taking action.
The move also shows how technology is becoming more important in land administration.
Digital family-tree certificates, e-KYC and the e-Pauti system can reduce paperwork and make applications easier to track.
For families living far from their ancestral property, digital systems can be especially useful.
However, documentation and verification remain important parts of the process.
Technology can make the procedure easier, but it does not replace the need to establish legitimate succession.
Karnataka has a large agricultural land base and many families with long-standing connections to rural property.
As migration increases, more families may have heirs living outside the state.
The revised Pauti Khata process could therefore become particularly useful for families managing inherited farmland across generations.
It may also encourage landowners to keep succession documents, family records and land records properly updated.
The latest decision is a small but significant change in how agricultural land inheritance is handled.
For non-resident heirs, distance has often made administrative procedures more difficult.
The revised rules attempt to make the process clearer while retaining verification requirements.
For families with inherited farmland, the message is straightforward:
Keeping land records updated can make succession easier, even when the next generation lives far away.
As Karnataka continues to digitise land administration, such reforms could make property and farmland records more accessible to families spread across India and the world.
