A retired teacher in the outskirts of Hyderabad paid a large advance for an open plot in 2025, agreed a registration date, and turned up at the sub registrar office with cash and paperwork ready. The document was never registered. The survey number had been flagged on the state's prohibited property list, and by law the sub registrar could not touch it. The seller vanished, and the advance went with him. The tragedy is that a two minute online check, done before any money changed hands, would have shown the flag in advance.

The short answer. Telangana keeps an official list of properties that cannot be registered, maintained under Section 22A of the Registration Act. It covers categories such as government land, endowment and wakf property, assigned land given to the landless poor, ceiling surplus land, and parcels under dispute. If your survey number is on that list, the sub registrar is legally bound to refuse the sale deed, gift deed or mortgage. The trade-off is stark: the check is free and takes minutes, while ignoring it can cost your entire advance with little hope of recovery.

What is the Section 22A prohibited property list?

It is a legal register of land that the state has barred from registration for public policy reasons. Section 22A of the Registration Act allows the government to notify certain categories of property that a sub registrar must not register. The purpose is to stop the private sale of land that belongs to the government, to religious or charitable institutions, or to protected groups, and to keep disputed parcels out of the transfer system until the dispute is resolved. For a buyer, the list is a safety net, but only if you actually look at it before you pay.

The important thing to understand is that this is not a soft warning or a matter of opinion. Once a survey number sits on the list, the officer at the registration counter has no discretion to proceed. That is why a property can look perfectly sellable, with a confident owner and a plausible price, and still be impossible to register. The block is not about the buyer or the price, it is about the land itself.

Which categories of land usually appear on the list?

The list groups together several kinds of protected or disputed land. Government and public land makes up a large share, since these parcels were never meant for private sale. Endowment and wakf properties, held by temples, charitable trusts or the wakf board, are protected because they belong to an institution rather than an individual. Assigned lands, given by the government to landless poor families for cultivation or housing, carry conditions that usually forbid resale. Ceiling surplus land and parcels tied up in court disputes round out the common categories. The exact wording of the notification governs each case, so treat these groupings as a guide to what triggers a flag rather than a final legal opinion.

Assigned land deserves a special mention because it traps so many buyers. These are parcels the government handed to poor families under conditions that usually forbid a sale to an outsider, and those conditions do not disappear just because years have passed or the land has changed hands informally. A parcel may have been fenced, cultivated and even sold once or twice within a village, yet still carry the original assignment condition that makes a formal registration impossible. If a price looks unusually low for the location, ask directly whether the land was ever assigned, and let the official list settle the question rather than the seller's assurance.

How do you check a survey number against the list?

You check it on the official Telangana Registration and Stamps Department portal before you commit money. Open registration.telangana.gov.in and use the prohibited property search, entering the district, mandal, village and survey number of the parcel you want to buy. The result tells you whether that survey number carries a Section 22A flag. Because the check is free and quick, there is no excuse to skip it, and no reason to take the seller's word that the land is clear.

One habit separates careful buyers from unlucky ones: check more than once. Verify when you first shortlist the property, verify again on the day you agree the price, and verify one final time on the morning you are due at the sub registrar office. Lists are updated, and a parcel that looked clear weeks ago can be flagged in the meantime. The morning check is the one that saves you from walking into a refusal with your money already handed over.

What happens if you try to buy a listed property?

The registration simply will not go through, and that is the good outcome. When a survey number is on the Section 22A list, the sub registrar is legally bound to refuse the document, so a sale deed cannot be completed. The worse outcome is financial: if you have already paid an advance to a seller who knew or should have known about the flag, recovering that money can be slow, expensive and often fruitless. A civil suit takes years, and a seller who set out to mislead you may have little left to recover. This is why the check belongs at the very start of the process, not the end.

There is also a quieter risk. Some sellers will insist a flag is a mistake and promise to get it removed. Corrections do happen, because lists are not perfect and genuine owners are sometimes wrongly included. But a correction is the seller's problem to solve before you pay, not a promise you should fund. Wait for the flag to clear on the official portal, then proceed. Never advance money against a future correction.

How does this fit with your other buyer checks?

The prohibited property check sits alongside your title, land records and location checks, and does not replace any of them. Title verification tells you the ownership chain. Land records confirm the parcel's official record of rights. Our guide on using the Bhu Bharati land records portal covers that record side in detail. The Section 22A check answers a different question again: is this land legally allowed to be sold at all. And for parcels near lakes, our guide on HYDRAA and buffer zone verification covers the water body risk. Run all of these, because each one catches a problem the others miss.

Think of it as a short battery of independent tests. No single check is enough on its own, but together they close most of the gaps a determined seller might exploit. The whole set costs very little and can be finished in a day or two, which is nothing against the size of the payment you are about to make.

What are the seven steps to clear the 22A check?

Follow these in order before releasing any advance.

1. Collect the exact district, mandal, village and survey number from the seller's documents.
2. Open the official Telangana Registration and Stamps portal and find the prohibited property search.
3. Enter the parcel details and note whether any Section 22A flag appears.
4. If a flag appears, stop and ask the seller to resolve it officially before any payment.
5. If the parcel is clear, save a dated screenshot of the result for your records.
6. Repeat the search on the day you agree the final price.
7. Repeat it once more on the morning of registration, just before you leave for the sub registrar office.

Is a clear result a guarantee of a safe purchase?

No, a clear prohibited property result is necessary but not sufficient. It tells you only that the parcel is not currently barred from registration under Section 22A. It does not confirm the seller's ownership, the accuracy of the land record, the absence of a home loan against the property, or whether the parcel sits inside a protected water body margin. Treat the clear result as one green light among several, and do not let it lull you into skipping the title search, the encumbrance certificate or a lawyer's review. The strongest position is a property that passes every independent check, documented and dated, before you part with money.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I check the Telangana prohibited property list? Use the official Telangana Registration and Stamps Department portal at registration.telangana.gov.in and open the prohibited property search. Enter the district, mandal, village and survey number of the parcel. The result shows whether that survey number carries a Section 22A flag that would block its registration.

What does it mean if my survey number is on the 22A list? It means the sub registrar is legally bound to refuse to register a sale deed, gift deed or mortgage for that parcel. The land falls into a protected or disputed category, such as government, endowment, wakf, assigned or ceiling surplus land, and cannot be transferred to a private buyer until, and unless, the flag is officially removed.

Can a property be removed from the prohibited list? Yes, genuine owners are sometimes wrongly included and can seek a correction through the proper official process. However, a correction is the seller's responsibility to complete before you pay. Never advance money against a promise that a flag will be cleared later, because the outcome and timing of a correction are never guaranteed.

When should I run the 22A check? Run it at the very start, before paying any advance, and repeat it on the day you agree the price and again on the morning of registration. Lists are updated over time, so a parcel that was clear weeks ago can be flagged later. The final morning check protects you from arriving to a refusal with your money already committed.

Last updated 2026-08-28. PropNewz Team.