Land terms A–C

Village habitation area, typically evidenced by a panchayat patta rather than a jamabandi khatedari entry.

Value change arising from reduced time and cost of reaching a location — dependent on connection, not proximity.

A neighbouring parcel, whose own record often carries information about the parcel you are assessing.

Frequently the only realistic buyer for a landlocked or strip parcel.

A characteristic — access, zoning, title, shape, water — for which a comparable must be adjusted.

Selling record, chain, map, site and market work as a defined deliverable, independent of any transaction.

Assembling several adjoining holdings into a single contiguous developable parcel.

A contract to transfer land in future. Creates obligations; transfers nothing.

A contract to transfer at a future date; creates obligations, transfers nothing.

A commercial hospitality operation — stays, events or farm experiences — conducted on agricultural land.

A requirement in some states that only persons of defined agriculturist status may purchase agricultural land.

The determined route of a project, which fixes which parcels are affected and how.

The planned route of a road or utility, and the width reserved for it.

Identification of which specific units or plots belong to the owner, ideally fixed at the outset.

A restriction attached to land granted under a government scheme, travelling with the land.

A layout developed with conversion, approval and pattas, where plots can be registered and serviced.

100 sq m. One-hundredth of a hectare.

The owner receives an agreed proportion of developed plots or units.

A transaction between unrelated parties acting freely, without distress or special motive.

Sale with little or no warranty as to condition, encumbrance or title beyond what is disclosed.

What a seller hopes for; the weakest and most abundant form of evidence.

Transfer of the lease to another party; infrastructure assets frequently change hands during a term.

The tendency of negative accounts to travel further and persist longer than positive ones.

The determination of compensation and of the persons entitled to it.

New fallow — culturable land recently out of cultivation.

Old fallow — long uncultivated, often but not always unculturable.

Rain-fed land, dependent entirely on monsoon.

A limited-access road or rail line severing local connections and making a parcel harder to reach.

A defined set of villages a broker knows completely, as opposed to a district known vaguely.

Land donated under the Bhoodan movement and held under Bhoodan legislation, carrying transfer restrictions.

The cadastral map of a village, showing every khasra as a numbered shape adjoining every other. Where the jamabandi tells you how much land there is, the map tells you what shape it is, where it sits, what adjoins it, and what runs through it. Access, frontage, shape and internal features such as a recorded path or drain are visible only here, and they frequently matter more to value than area does.

The cadastral map showing the shape and position of each khasra.

The cadastral map showing every khasra as a numbered shape with its adjoining parcels.

Traditional area unit. In Rajasthan, pucca bigha = 27,225 sq ft; kaccha bigha = 17,424 sq ft. Varies by region.

One-twentieth of a bigha, and itself divided into twenty biswansi, so that a bigha contains four hundred biswansi. Older Rajasthan records and everyday village speech state holdings in the format bigha–biswa–biswansi — a holding written as 2-11-08 means two bigha, eleven biswa and eight biswansi. Because the bigha itself varies between the pucca and kaccha measure and between districts, a biswa figure is only meaningful once you know which bigha it is a twentieth of.

One-twentieth of a bigha.

One-twentieth of a biswa; 400 biswansi make a bigha.

The apex revenue court of Rajasthan, seated at Ajmer.

The record of receipts, invoices, expenses and engagements underpinning tax compliance and dispute defence.

Annual fixed costs divided by average net commission per completed transaction.

Bringing buyer and seller to a completed transaction for a commission, without taking an ownership position.

Building to a committed tenant's specification against a signed long lease.

The initial phase of low occupancy that must be funded from working capital.

The set of people who could plausibly buy a given parcel; often very small for agricultural land.

Buyer and seller completing directly after being introduced, cutting the broker out.

The area defined by the Act as the basis on which units must be sold.

Revenue, protection, record maintenance, opportunity cost and any finance cost incurred while holding.

The maximum agricultural holding permitted under the Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973.

Agricultural land held above the prescribed ceiling limit, liable to vest in the State.

Land irrigated from a well, and historically the highest-assessed of the irrigation classes in Rajasthan revenue records. The entry records the position as it stood when the classification was made, which may have been decades ago. A parcel marked चाही today may have a well that has collapsed, run dry, fallen below reach as groundwater declined, or been separated from the field by a family partition. Read the class, then go and look.

Well-irrigated land.

A written list of every transfer: date, ground, from whom, to whom, document reference.

Village common grazing land, set aside for the livestock of the village. It is community land: not allotted, not private, and not saleable by anyone. Occupation, however long and however widely accepted locally, does not create title or a right to sell, and the Supreme Court's directions in Jagpal Singh v. State of Punjab hardened that position considerably. Money paid for charagah land buys a dispute rather than a field.

Village common grazing land. Community land — not allotted, not private, not saleable.

Whether conversion is charged at a flat rate per unit area or as a percentage of a benchmark valuation.

Usable internal height, one of the specifications by which storage buildings become obsolete.

Sums collected on an owner's behalf, which must be held separately, accounted in writing and remitted on a stated cycle.

Any sum received that belongs to another party, which must be held separately and accounted for in writing.

Working a parcel jointly with another agent whose buyer suits it, on agreed terms.

Working with another agent whose buyer or parcel complements yours.

Temperature-controlled storage for perishables; capital-intensive with a total-loss failure mode.

A stage at which transactions commonly fail — token-to-agreement, diligence, conditions, funding, registration day, or post-registration.

Buying agricultural land, converting it, obtaining layout approval and selling developed plots.

Paying a share of closings; aligns incentive but creates pressure requiring tighter supervision.

An actual, recent, nearby, similar and arm's-length transaction used as evidence of value.

Plot purchase plus construction, typically conditional on building within a period.

Dependence on a single large client or developer whose withdrawal removes most revenue.

Dependence on a single client, developer or transaction type.

A requirement in the agreement to sell that must be satisfied by a stated date, with a stated consequence.

An agreement to sell making completion conditional on a defect being cured by a date, with the deposit refundable.

Physical adjacency of parcels, without which an assembly is not developable.

Building for another party to their design for an agreed price or rate, without land or market risk.

Permission to use agricultural land for a non-agricultural purpose. In Rajasthan it is granted under section 90-A of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956, with separate rules for urban and rural areas. Conversion changes the permitted use, not the title and not the holder — a converted parcel with a defective title is still a defective title. It is granted for a stated category and on conditions, including a period within which the use must commence.

Permission to use agricultural land for a non-agricultural purpose, granted under the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956.

The levies payable on conversion; set by the state and authority and varying by category, area and location.

The sequence enquiry → qualified → viewing → offer → agreed → completed, with a drop rate at each stage.

The record of what was grown on a plot and by whom, season by season.

The person recorded as actually working the land, who may differ from the recorded holder.

The recurring movement of a land market through quiet, rising, hot, turning and slow phases.