Police verification and rent registration for landlords in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru

Rules and rates as of 16 October 2026.

Letting out a flat in a big city involves two pieces of paperwork that landlords often mix up. One is telling the police who your tenant is. The other is registering the rent agreement with the state's registration department. They come from different laws, are handled by different offices, and carry different consequences if you skip them. This explainer separates the two and shows where each city's official process stands, based on what we could confirm on official pages.

Two separate duties

Police intimation (often called tenant verification). No central Act makes this compulsory everywhere. City police use their power to issue temporary orders in the interest of public safety. Under the old criminal procedure code that power was section 144 CrPC; the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which replaced the CrPC, carries it forward (section 163, which the editor should confirm against the gazetted text). Such orders typically direct house owners to give tenants' details to the local police station, and they run for a limited period before being reissued. Disobeying such an order can be prosecuted, and the order itself names the penalty provision. Check the current order for your area, because its wording, duration and penalty clause are what bind you.

Registration of the agreement. This comes from the Registration Act, 1908, and in Maharashtra also from the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999. It is handled by the sub-registrar's office, not the police, and it is about whether the agreement is legally effective, not about security.

Doing one does not satisfy the other. A registered agreement does not tell the police anything, and a police intimation does not register your lease.

City by city: what we could confirm

City	Police rule, as confirmed	Official route
Mumbai	The Mumbai Police "Tenant Information" page takes landlord, tenant, property, workplace and reference details, and says false information is a punishable offence. It states that "Police NOC is not required for renting Flat/House." The current commissioner's order under the BNSS could not be found on an official page.	mumbaipolice.gov.in Tenant Information form, the local police station, or registered post to it (Brihanmumbai Commissionerate area only)
Delhi	Delhi Police publishes a tenant verification form among its downloadable forms; its RTI manual lists "tenant and servant verification" forms. The current order and any online service could not be read (pages blocked or scanned).	Delhi Police downloadable forms page, then the local police station; check for an online option
Hyderabad (Rachakonda)	Rachakonda Police advises house owners to "Inform the details of tenants to the local Police Station", keep a tenant register, and take passport and visa copies from foreign tenants. No law is cited on that page.	Downloadable tenant verification form on the Rachakonda Police site, then the local police station
Bengaluru	Not verified: Bengaluru City Police and Karnataka State Police pages refused automated access.	Ask at the local police station or check the Bengaluru City Police website

Hyderabad has more than one police commissionerate. If your flat falls under Hyderabad or Cyberabad rather than Rachakonda, check that commissionerate's own instructions.

Registration: the one-year line

Section 17(1)(d) of the Registration Act makes registration compulsory for "leases of immovable property from year to year, or for any term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent". An 11-month agreement is outside that clause, which is why the format is so common. A 24-month lease is inside it.

If a lease that must be registered is not, section 49 says it cannot "affect any immovable property comprised therein" or be received as evidence of the transaction, with narrow exceptions. Section 23 gives four months from signing to present the document. Our earlier explainer on rent agreements covers these rules in more detail.

Maharashtra is different

In Maharashtra, section 55(1) of the Maharashtra Rent Control Act says every leave and licence or letting agreement "shall be in writing and shall be registered under the Registration Act, 1908", whatever its length. Section 55(2) puts that responsibility on the landlord, and without a registered agreement the tenant's version of the terms prevails unless proved otherwise. Section 55(3) provides for up to three months' imprisonment, a fine of up to ₹5,000, or both. So a Mumbai or Pune landlord gains nothing on registration by choosing 11 months.

Worked example: 11 months vs 24 months

Illustrative rates only. We could not read an official schedule of stamp duty or registration fees for leases in Delhi or Maharashtra (both pages refused access), so the rates below are placeholders, not any state's actual figures. Take your state's rates from the sub-registrar or the state registration department.

Assume rent of ₹30,000 a month, stamp duty of 1% of total rent for the term, and a flat registration fee of ₹1,000 where registration is required.

• 11 months, outside Maharashtra. Total rent = ₹30,000 × 11 = ₹3,30,000. Stamp duty = 1% × ₹3,30,000 = ₹3,300. Registration not compulsory, so no fee. Cost = ₹3,300, or ₹300 a month of tenancy.
• 11 months, in Maharashtra. Same ₹3,300 stamp duty plus the ₹1,000 fee, because section 55 requires registration. Cost = ₹4,300, about ₹391 a month.
• 24 months, anywhere. Total rent = ₹30,000 × 24 = ₹7,20,000. Stamp duty = 1% × ₹7,20,000 = ₹7,200. Registration compulsory under section 17(1)(d), so add ₹1,000. Cost = ₹8,200, about ₹342 a month.

On a per-month basis, the longer registered agreement is not necessarily the expensive option. What it adds is a trip to the sub-registrar (or an e-registration where the state offers one) and a term both sides can enforce. Real state schedules differ in what they charge on, including whether deposits count, so redo this sum with your state's numbers.

A short checklist

• Find the current police order for your area and give the tenant's details in the form it asks for. Keep the acknowledgement.
• Collect identity proof from the tenant and, for a foreign national, passport and visa copies.
• Decide the term. If it is over a year, or the flat is in Maharashtra, plan the registration within four months of signing.
• For a dispute or an unusual arrangement, such as a company lease, consult a property lawyer.