The order, and what each stage gates
A property transaction here is not a list of tasks that can be done in whatever order suits the week. Each stage produces the thing the next stage needs, and the most expensive habit in a purchase is doing stage six before stage four.
| # | Stage | Who leads it | What it gates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Offer agreed | Buyer, seller, agent | Nothing yet |
| 2 | Notary instructed | Buyer | Every check below |
| 3 | Documents assembled | Seller, agent, local authority | The search |
| 4 | Title search | Notary | Whether to proceed at all |
| 5 | Survey | Licensed surveyor | Extent, and therefore price |
| 6 | Agreement to sell | Notary | The seller’s commitment |
| 7 | Funds and clearances | Buyer, bank | The completion date |
| 8 | Stamp duty paid | Buyer | Registration |
| 9 | Deed executed | Notary | The transfer itself |
| 10 | Deed registered | Notary | Priority over a later claim |
Ten stages. Two of them, four and eight, are the ones people try to shuffle, and both resist it.
Nothing binds until a notary attests it
The offer is stage one for a reason. It settles a number and settles nothing else.
The law is unusually direct on this. Under section 2 of the Prevention of Frauds Ordinance, no sale of land avails in law until the document has been written down, every party executing it has signed, and a notary has attested it while two witnesses look on together. Contracts for a future sale are caught by the identical wording, so an agreement to buy binds no more easily than the transfer does. The exceptions are minor, covering a lease at will and terms of a month or less.
Translated: a signed offer letter, a deposit paid on trust, an exchange of messages confirming terms. None of those is a purchase. They may reflect entirely genuine good faith on both sides, and they bind neither party.
That cuts both ways, which is worth remembering when a seller assures you the property is as good as yours.
Instruct a notary before you think you need one
Stage two is where most of the risk in a purchase is either managed or created, and doing it early costs almost nothing.
A notary or attorney-at-law does the work the rest of the sequence depends on, the Land Registry searches, the reading of the extracts, the drafting, the attestation. Appointing one after an advance has changed hands is appointing them to review a decision rather than to inform it.
Documents, then searches, and no money in between
Stages three to five are the substance of the purchase, and they belong in the gap between agreeing a price and committing funds.
The file comes together first: the seller’s deed, the survey plan, whatever local authority certificates exist. The notary then searches the register over whatever period they judge appropriate, with thirty-five years a common floor, though that number is convention rather than statute. A licensed surveyor confirms the boundaries and the extent, which decides whether the price you agreed was for the quantity of land you are actually getting.
Both stages have their own guides, what to check before you buy and title, deeds and the thirty-five-year search.
The agreement to sell, and the advance
Stage six is where the seller’s commitment becomes real and where the buyer’s money first moves.
We do not publish a customary advance percentage. We have not verified one, and a figure invented for the sake of completeness is worse than an acknowledged gap. The amount is negotiated. What is not negotiable is the form, if the agreement is to have any force at all, it has to be executed the way section 2 requires, exactly like the transfer that follows it.
Ask your notary two questions before signing. What happens to the advance if the search turns something up, and what the deadline for completion is. Both belong in the instrument rather than in an understanding.
Stamp duty is a gate, not an invoice
Stage eight catches people out because it does not behave like a bill.
Stamp duty on a land sale is 4 per cent, it falls on the buyer, and it is paid to the relevant Provincial Council rather than to central government. The part that governs the sequence is the timing: it must be paid before the deed is registered. An unpaid duty does not defer a cost, it blocks a registration.
It is also assessed against whichever is greater, your consideration or the province’s own figure for the property, so the amount cannot be fixed with certainty until that assessment is known. Our costs, taxes and legal guides set the calculation out in full.
The day itself
Execution is stage nine and it is short. The deed is read, every executant signs, thumb impressions are taken, the notary attests, and the two witnesses are present together while it happens.
The formality is the substance. It is the same section that makes the whole transaction enforceable, which is why a signing is not a ceremony to be rushed through for the sake of a diary.
Registration is what the other nine stages were for
Stage ten gets treated as paperwork and is in fact the point. Registering the deed at the Land Registry gives it priority. Section 7 of the Registration of Documents Ordinance puts it the other way round, a later deed, duly registered, defeats an earlier one that was never lodged, as against anybody claiming an adverse interest through it. Which is a formal way of saying that a deed left in a drawer can lose to a deed taken to the registry.
What registration does not do is repair anything. The Ordinance says so in terms. Which is why stage four cannot be skipped in the hope that stage ten will cover for it.
Where your budget sits changes stage one
The stage that varies most is finding the property at all, and the market is not uniform. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka reported that in the first quarter of 2026 condominium transactions in the 25 to 50 million rupee band fell, while the 50 to 70 million and the 75 million and above bands rose slightly. Colombo District accounted for 65 per cent of condominium sales transactions in the same quarter.
A buyer in the middle band is shopping in the thinnest part of that market. It affects how long stage one takes. It changes nothing about the nine stages after it.
What to do first
Instruct a notary, then look. Not the other way round.
A1 will find the property, negotiate the terms, assemble the file and keep the notary, the surveyor and the bank moving in sequence across Colombo, Kandy, Gampaha, Kurunegala, Matara, Galle and Nuwara Eliya. The searches, the drafting, the attestation and the tax questions go to a notary, an attorney-at-law or a tax adviser. If you would like an introduction to that part of it, ask us before you commit to anything.