How property lawyers use Justis AI

The problem

A buyer or a lender wants a title opinion covering thirty years, and the file arrives as sixty scanned documents in no particular order. Building the chain by hand means reading every deed for the schedule, the extent, the parties and the recital of how the vendor came to own the land, then checking that each recital matches the deed before it.

The defects hide in the joins. The extent shrinks by four guntas between two deeds with no explanation, a transfer rests on a general power of attorney rather than a registered conveyance, or the revenue record still shows an owner from two transfers back.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads every deed, mutation entry and extract in the project, runs OCR on the scans and tells you when it is reading one, and lays out the chain in order: each transfer with the parties, the date, the registration details, the extent and the document and page it comes from.

It checks each link against the next and flags what does not reconcile: a vendor who does not appear as the purchaser in the previous deed, a schedule or extent that changes, an unregistered instrument where section 17 of the Registration Act requires registration, and a mutation that was never made. The chain and the list of requisitions come back in Word.

The problem

The encumbrance certificate is the start of the search, not the end of it. It shows registered transactions, but an equitable mortgage by deposit of title deeds under section 58(f) of the Transfer of Property Act may never appear on it, and a partial release deed is easy to read as a full one.

Pending suits matter just as much. A sale made while a suit concerning the property is pending is subject to its result under the doctrine of lis pendens in section 52 of the Act, so a partition suit filed by a family member can bind the buyer who never heard of it.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the encumbrance certificates, the search reports you upload, the bank's sanction and release letters and any court papers, and lists every charge with its creation, its release and what remains. It marks the years the certificates do not cover and the charges shown in a sanction letter that the certificate does not show.

For litigation, it reads the plaints and orders on file, identifies the suits that concern this property, and states what each could do to the title if it succeeds. The result is a ranked list of encumbrances, each with the document behind it.

The problem

Stamp duty is a state question. The article that applies, the rate, the basis of valuation and the concessions differ between states, and a single transaction can involve an agreement for sale, a power of attorney, a sale deed and a rectification, each stamped under a different article.

Getting it wrong has consequences beyond the deficit. An instrument that is not duly stamped can be impounded and is not admissible in evidence until the duty and penalty are paid, and a document that needs registration but is not registered does not affect the property under section 49 of the Registration Act.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the draft instruments and the valuation papers you upload, identifies which instruments need registration and which article of the applicable state stamp schedule governs each, and sets out the duty working with the rate and the value it is charged on. It tells you where the state schedule you uploaded or cited is the source, so the working can be checked.

It also checks the drafts for the registration points that cause rejections at the sub-registrar's office: the schedule and boundaries, the extent in words and figures, the presentation period under section 23 and the documents to annex.

The problem

The developer's standard agreement for sale runs to forty pages, and the buyer's lawyer has a day to mark it up. The clauses that matter are predictable: the possession date and what happens if it slips, the carpet area and how it is measured, the payment plan, the defect liability period and the cancellation deductions.

For a registered RERA project the agreement must follow the form in the state rules, so a clause that departs from it in the promoter's favour is a point to push back on, not a matter of taste.

How Justis handles it

Write your negotiating positions down once as a playbook: possession, delay interest, carpet area, defect liability, cancellation, and the rest. Justis reads each agreement against it, flags every clause that departs from your position and from the rights the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 gives the allottee, and proposes the change.

The mark-up comes back as tracked changes in the Word document, with a short issues list explaining each change so the client or the developer's counsel can follow it.

The problem

A flat promised for March 2024 has still not been handed over, and the buyer wants either the money back with interest or possession with interest for the delay. Section 18 of RERA gives both routes, but the complaint has to be built from the agreement, the registration details, the payment receipts and two years of correspondence.

When the order comes, the losing side has sixty days to appeal to the Appellate Tribunal under section 44, and a promoter who appeals must first deposit the amount directed under section 43(5).

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the agreement, the receipts, the demand letters and the correspondence, builds the payment schedule and the delay period with the page for each figure, and drafts the complaint under section 31 with the relief under section 18: refund with interest, or interest for every month of delay until possession, at the rate the state rules prescribe.

When an order arrives, it reads the order against the record, computes the last date to appeal, and drafts the grounds for whichever side you act for.

The problem

A client acquiring a building, or taking over a retail chain, inherits forty leases on forty different templates. Someone has to pull out the rent, the escalation, the lock-in, the term, the renewal option, the assignment clause and the security deposit from every one of them.

The legal points are in the same pile. A lease for more than a year must be made by registered instrument under section 107 of the Transfer of Property Act, and an unregistered one gives a much weaker position than the tenant believes.

How Justis handles it

Tabular review asks the same questions of every lease in the project and returns a grid: one row per lease, one column per term, each cell with the clause and page it came from. You can add a column mid-review and export the grid to Excel.

Justis flags the leases that need attention: unregistered leases over a year, assignment or change-of-control clauses the transaction will trigger, lock-ins that end before the deal closes, and escalations that do not match the rent actually being paid.

The problem

A landowner is offered a joint development agreement: land in exchange for a share of the built-up area. The document decides who controls the approvals, what happens if the developer stalls, and whether the power of attorney the owner signs can be used to sell the owner's share.

Under RERA the landowner who shares in the built area can be treated as a promoter, with obligations to allottees, and the stamp duty on the agreement and the power of attorney depends on the state and on how much control passes.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the draft agreement, the power of attorney and the title file, and sets out the commercial and legal terms in one note: the sharing ratio, the timelines, the approvals, the default and termination rights, the scope of the power of attorney and the landowner's exposure as a promoter.

Against your landowner-side or developer-side playbook, it marks the clauses to change and drafts the revisions as tracked changes, including a power of attorney limited to the developer's share.