Someone hands you a paper called a fard
You are about to buy a plot. The seller shows a paper. It has names, numbers, and a stamp. He says this paper proves the land is his. This paper is a fard.
A fard is the official record that shows who owns a piece of land in Pakistan. The Punjab Land Records Authority (PLRA) calls it your land's legal identity. Banks ask for it. Courts look at it.
What is a fard exactly?
Fard means a sheet or a list in Urdu. In land records, it is an extract from the big register that keeps the whole village's land details. That register is the jamabandi, also called the Register Haqdaran Zamin.
The training manual on land and property rights prepared by the National Disaster Management Authority explains it plainly. The fard is prepared from the jamabandi register. It includes the changes made through mutation, or intiqal. In simple words, it is a copy of the part of the register that concerns one owner or one family. That is why it is also called fard malkiyat, the ownership document.
Where does the fard come from?
The law behind it is the Land Revenue Act 1967. Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan each apply their own version.
Section 39 says every estate has a record of rights. It lists who owns the land, who cultivates it, what interests each person has, and what revenue is due. Section 41 says the collector gets the patwari to prepare an updated edition of this record. This is the periodical record, the jamabandi.
Between two updates, ownership changes. Section 42 says anyone who gets land by inheritance, purchase, mortgage, or gift must report it to the patwari within three months. The patwari enters it in the register of mutations. That is how the fard stays current.
What does a fard show?
A fard shows the owner's name and father's name, the khewat number, the khasra numbers, the area, and the share in joint property.
Khewat is the ownership account number. One family may own several plots under one khewat number. Khasra is the number of a single plot or field.
The jamabandi register has ten columns. The first is the khewat number. Then the khatauni number, which is the cultivator's holding. Then the owner and cultivator names. Then the khasra numbers, area, irrigation, rent, revenue demand, and remarks.
Does a fard prove you own the land?
It carries a strong legal presumption, not an absolute proof. Section 52 of the Land Revenue Act says an entry in the record of rights is presumed to be true until the contrary is proved.
That means the person whose name is on the fard starts with the advantage. But the presumption can be rebutted. If the entry was made by fraud or mistake, a court can correct it.
If you believe an entry is wrong, Section 53 lets you file a suit for a declaration of your right under Chapter VI of the Specific Relief Act 1877.
What a fard does not tell you
The fard shows who owns the land today. It does not show how ownership moved from one person to another. That history sits in the mutation record.
Gaps in the mutation chain are how double sales happen. So never buy on the strength of a fard alone. Trace the mutations too, and if the transfer is a gift, see how gift deeds work in Pakistan. Our guide on property mutation in Pakistan explains the whole chain.
A fard exists only for land that is part of the revenue record. Most private housing society plots have no government fard. The society keeps its own records and issues its own transfer letter. A plot that is still on file is transferred through the society. See how a plot file transfer works in Pakistan.
How to get a fard in Punjab
Punjab runs its record through the PLRA. The official PLRA page explains the three ways.
- Online through the PLRA portal at punjab-zameen.gov.pk. You log in and verify the details digitally.
- At an Arazi Record Centre, or ARC, after biometric verification. They print the fard for you.
- At an Arazi Moawin kiosk in your locality.
You need your CNIC and the property details, usually the khewat, khasra, or registry number. For someone else to collect it, they need a power of attorney verified by the sub registrar.
The fee is small. PLRA says it is around Rs 50 per khatooni and up to Rs 150 per khewat, plus a service charge.
How to get a fard in the other provinces
Sindh keeps its record with the Board of Revenue. The portal is sindhzameen.gos.pk. You can search by CNIC or name using the district, taluka, and deh. But the Board says the online information has no legal validity. For official use, get the printed computerised copy from a Peoples Service Centre.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the land records portal is kplr.gkp.pk. Most districts are computerised. In Balochistan the records are still being digitised, so verify at the tehsil office or the sub registrar in person. For Islamabad plots, use the Capital Development Authority verification service.
How to read your fard
Check four things. The khewat number matches the property. The khasra numbers are the plots you are buying. The name on the record matches the CNIC. The share matches the deal.
Get a fresh fard close to the day you need it. Never rely on the seller's old copy.
One Punjab note. In July 2026 the province briefly made a Green Property Certificate compulsory for transfers, then withdrew it within days. The PLRA notification of 11 July 2026 kept the fard and naqal arazi valid. So the fard is still the document to ask for.
What it means for you
Before you pay for any land, pull a fresh fard yourself. Match every name and number. Then check the mutation history. Our guide on how to check property ownership in Pakistan walks through the checks for every province. And if the record is clean, see how to check a property in Pakistan before buying.
The fard is one paper. But it is the paper the state trusts. Read it well.
The khasra number on your fard also appears in the khasra girdawari. Read our guide to khasra and girdawari records in Pakistan to see how the two fit together.
And if you already handed over token money, read what the law says about token money in property deals in Pakistan.
If the owner died and the family cannot agree, read our guide on dividing inherited property in Pakistan.
For plain English walks through other everyday legal problems, see all our guides on lexiber.com.
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