Can Blockchain Is The Best Way To End India’s Property Chaos?

On February 10, 2026, during the Union Budget debate in the Rajya Sabha, something unusually precise was said in Parliament.

AAP MP Mr. Raghav Chadha described India’s land records system as being in “utter chaos” and proposed a National Blockchain Property Register as a structural solution.

For millions of Indian homebuyers, property investors, developers, and real estate professionals, this was not rhetoric. It was recognition.

At 99realty, we work daily within the realities of India’s property registration system. We see what broken titling costs people — in delayed transactions, legal ambiguity, frozen capital, emotional stress, and avoidable litigation. When systemic reform enters Parliament backed by data, it deserves serious examination.

This is not merely a technology story. It is a property rights story.

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The Structural Problem: India’s Property Registration Gap

India’s real estate market suffers from a foundational weakness: registration does not equal ownership.

That distinction lies at the heart of the crisis.

According to data cited in Parliament:

• 66% of civil disputes in India are land-related
• 45% of properties lack clear titles
• 48% of properties are under dispute
• Civil land disputes take an average of seven years to resolve
• India ranks 133 out of 190 countries in property registration efficiency
• Over 6.2 crore property records remain undigitised

These are not marginal inefficiencies. They represent structural fragility in the country’s largest store of household wealth.

For context, real estate accounts for the majority of middle-class asset holdings in India. Yet the system governing that wealth remains paper-heavy, fragmented across states, and legally ambiguous.

Property transactions routinely take two to six months to close. Transaction costs range between 6–8% of property value. Title verification requires physical record tracing across multiple offices. Mutation records and inheritance trails often remain incomplete.

This is not friction. It is systemic drag.

What the Supreme Court Clarified in 2025

The debate gained further weight following two rulings by the Supreme Court of India in April and November 2025.

The Court made two critical observations:

1. Registration records a transaction — not ownership.
2. India’s land record system is “structurally fragile.”

In its November observation, the Court went further, suggesting blockchain technology as a potential alternative paradigm for integrating property registration with conclusive titling.

When the apex court publicly identifies structural fragility and hints toward technological reform, it shifts the conversation from political debate to institutional urgency.

The Proposal: A National Blockchain Property Register

The proposed reform is straightforward in concept:

Every property record — sale deed, mutation, inheritance, encumbrance, lien — would be recorded on a blockchain ledger.

Key characteristics:

• Time-stamped entries
• Immutable audit trails
• Tamper-evident structure
• Real-time title verification
• Publicly verifiable ownership history

Instead of scattered physical records and opaque manual verification, a buyer, bank, or court could access a clean, chronological, transparent ownership chain instantly.

For buyers:

• Reduced title uncertainty
• Lower legal friction
• Faster closures

For banks:

• Stronger collateral verification
• Lower lending risk

For investors and REITs:

• Higher transparency
• Increased institutional confidence
• Improved liquidity

For the middle class:

• Property becomes reliable financial collateral

In theory, this transforms property from a litigation risk into a bankable asset.

It Has Already Worked Elsewhere — With Numbers to Prove It

Mr. Chadha cited three countries in his speech where blockchain-based land registries are already operational. The data from each of them deserves to be understood carefully.

Sweden began its blockchain property trial in 2016 through its land authority, Lantmäteriet. By 2018 the system was operationalised. Today, property transaction verification in Sweden takes one day. Transaction costs sit at approximately 0.2% of the property value. The dispute rate is 2%.

Georgia was among the first countries to implement national-scale blockchain land registration, partnering with Bitfury to record over 300,000 titles and clean up a post-Soviet system riddled with corruption. Property verification now takes approximately three hours. The flat registration fee is around $50. Dispute rates have fallen to 1%. In December 2025, Georgia signed a new memorandum to migrate its entire real estate registry to Hedera, with pilots beginning mid-2026 — they are not stopping, they are accelerating.

UAE — Dubai specifically — integrated blockchain into its land records through the Dubai Land Department. Verification there can be completed in 10 minutes. Transaction costs are approximately 0.5%. Dispute rates are below 1%. Just on February 9, 2026 — the very day Chadha made his speech — Dubai launched Phase 2 of its real estate tokenisation project, enabling the regulated resale of digital property tokens in the secondary market. Dubai projects $16 billion in tokenised real estate value by 2033.

Compare all of that to India: two to six months for a transaction, 6–8% transaction costs, and a 48% dispute rate. The gap is not incremental. It is civilisational. And it is entirely solvable.

Blockchain Is Not Magic — It Is Infrastructure

A serious analysis must acknowledge this: Blockchain does not fix bad data. It preserves it.

If flawed titles, missing inheritance records, encroachments, and revenue inconsistencies are uploaded without verification, the system becomes permanently flawed.

India faces four major implementation challenges:

1. Federal complexity – Land is a state subject. Harmonisation across states is legally complex.
2. Legacy data cleansing – 6.2 crore pending documents must be verified before migration.
3. Judicial alignment – Courts must legally recognise blockchain entries as conclusive.
4. Digital inclusion – Rural accessibility must be ensured.

Technology alone cannot replace administrative reform.

Blockchain must follow:

• Digitisation
• Standardisation
• Legal reform
• Title insurance ecosystem development

Without these, it remains a technological overlay — not a structural solution.

Why This Reform Still Matters

Despite implementation challenges, the alignment of forces is unusual:

• Parliamentary proposal backed by comparative data
• Judicial acknowledgment of structural fragility
• Global precedent demonstrating feasibility
• India’s strong digital infrastructure (UPI, Aadhaar, DigiLocker ecosystem)

India has leapfrogged legacy systems before. Payments transformed through UPI within years. Identity infrastructure scaled nationally.

Property records remain the last major analogue system affecting household wealth.

If digitised and made conclusive, the economic impact could be transformative:

• Lower transaction costs
• Higher liquidity
• Faster credit access
• Reduced litigation burden
• Increased global investor confidence

Real estate would move from defensive asset class to scalable financial infrastructure.

What Buyers and Investors Must Understand Today

Reform momentum does not change current reality.

As of today:

• Registration does not confirm ownership.
• Clean title requires independent legal verification.
• Mutation records must be traced.
• Encumbrance certificates must be examined carefully.
• Historical chain checks remain essential.

Until conclusive titling becomes policy, due diligence is the only protection.

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Institutional Implications: REITs, Capital & Liquidity

Blockchain-backed land records would do more than simplify home buying.

They would:

• Improve institutional underwriting
• Enable scalable property tokenisation
• Reduce title risk premiums
• Expand foreign capital participation
• Support secondary market liquidity

For REITs and large-scale commercial investors, conclusive digital titles reduce one of India’s largest perceived risk factors.

Capital flows where certainty exists.

A Reform of Governance, Not Just Technology

This conversation should not be reduced to “blockchain enthusiasm.”

It is about property rights.

Clear property rights:

• Strengthen economic mobility
• Enable collateral-based lending
• Reduce corruption interfaces
• Improve dispute resolution
• Unlock dormant capital

India’s middle class holds most of its wealth in property. Ensuring that wealth is legally secure is a governance obligation.

When Parliament and the Supreme Court converge on acknowledging fragility, reform becomes less speculative and more inevitable.

99Realty’s View

India has leapfrogged legacy systems before. UPI changed payments almost overnight. Aadhaar redefined identity. The digital infrastructure is increasingly ready. What is needed now is the political will to apply it to land records — arguably the single domain where its impact on ordinary Indians would be the most profound and the most immediate.

Raghav Chadha’s speech was more than a Budget intervention. It was a precise and data-driven case for treating property rights as a serious economic and governance priority. For a country where land and property represent the dominant store of household wealth — and where that wealth is currently under siege from a broken system — this is not a marginal reform. It is an essential one.

At 99realty, we will continue to track this closely. Because when blockchain land registration becomes policy in India — and we believe the momentum is firmly pointed in that direction — it will reshape how properties are valued, transacted, financed, and invested in. The chaos Mr. Chadha described is real. The solution exists. The question now is only one of political will and execution.

We are watching. And we are ready.