TDS on a Jointly Purchased Property: Who Deducts 1%, and How Many Forms Does It Take?

When a resident buys immovable property for ₹50 lakh or more, the buyer — not the seller — must deduct 1% TDS under Section 194-IA and deposit it with the government. Joint purchases multiply the paperwork, not the rate: every buyer deducts on their own share, and the forms multiply per buyer-seller combination. Get the mechanics wrong and the cost is interest, a late fee and a seller who cannot get credit for tax you withheld on their money.

Who deducts what when the buyers are joint?

Each buyer deducts 1% on their own share of the consideration, for each seller. The form is the trap: Form 26QB is a transaction report between one specific buyer and one specific seller — so two buyers and one seller means two forms; two buyers and two sellers means four. Each form carries both PANs, each buyer's share of the consideration, and each buyer's own 1%. The buyers cannot file one consolidated form, and the seller's share of the sale price cannot be reported on another buyer's form.

Does the ₹50 lakh threshold apply to the property or to your share?

To the property. The threshold is on the property's consideration — and since the Finance Act 2024 amendment, on the higher of the sale consideration and the stamp duty value — so two buyers paying ₹40 lakh each for an ₹80 lakh flat do not escape the deduction by splitting the payment; the flat crossed ₹50 lakh as a property. What splits is the deduction obligation: each buyer's 1% applies to their own share, so the ₹80 lakh purchase with a 50/50 split produces two payments of ₹40,000, not one of ₹80,000.

Whose property is exempt from this section?

Agricultural land, always. And the seller's status decides the section: 194-IA applies to resident sellers. If the seller is an NRI, the buyer's obligation shifts to Section 195 — deducting on capital gains at much higher effective rates and needing a lower-deduction certificate if the seller wants one. That is a different computation with real stakes; treat "the seller lives abroad" as a stop-and-get-help signal, not a detail.

The deadline and the certificate

Deduct at payment or credit, whichever is earlier, and deposit by 30 days from the end of the month of deduction (Rule 30) — a September deduction is due by 30 October. Form 26QB is both the challan and the statement; it needs both PANs, and a missing or wrong seller PAN is the classic error that strands the seller's credit. After filing, download Form 16B and hand it to the seller within the prescribed window — it is the seller's proof that the 1% they never received was, in fact, paid to the government on their behalf.

What missing it costs

Three layers, in order: interest under Section 201(1A) — 1% per month if you never deducted, 1.5% per month if you deducted but did not deposit; a late filing fee under Section 271H of ₹200 per day, capped at the TDS amount; and the practical mess — the seller's Form 26AS shows no credit, their sale proceeds are short by your unpaid 1%, and rectifying a wrong 26QB is slower than filing it right. In a joint purchase, one buyer's lapse strands the seller's credit for that share alone, which is why the co-buyers should agree in the sale agreement on who files which form and by when.

A worked example

An ₹80 lakh flat, two brothers buying jointly 50/50 from one resident seller, stamp duty value ₹78 lakh: the property crosses the threshold (₹80L consideration), so each brother deducts 1% on ₹40 lakh — ₹40,000 each — and files his own Form 26QB with the seller's PAN and his own. Two forms, two challans, both due 30 days after the month-end of the payment. Each brother hands the seller a Form 16B for ₹40,000; the seller claims ₹80,000 of TDS credit in the year of sale. Flip one brother out and put both sellers (say, an inheriting pair) in, and the grid is four forms — the mechanics never change, only the count. The entry-cost arithmetic around this purchase is worked on our rent-versus-buy page.

Educational content, not financial advice. Section 194-IA and Rule 30 mechanics verified against the Income Tax Department's own guidance and corroborating professional summaries on 29 October 2026 (sources below); the worked example is arithmetic on stated assumptions. Situations involving NRI sellers, gifts or partition deserve a CA before signature.