Since January, three rules have been going round Bengaluru: a deposit limited to two months’ rent, every agreement registered inside 60 days, and one rent rise a year.
We repeated them on this page. They were wrong.
A rent law did come into force on 8 January 2026. It changed something else. This note says what, where the three rules came from, and what actually governs a tenancy at the rents we work with.
What changed on 8 January
Imprisonment under the Karnataka Rent Act is replaced with money penalties, and the Rent Controller decides them.
KARNATAKA RENT (AMENDMENT) ACT, 2025 (KARNATAKA ACT 7 OF 2026) · IN FORCE 8 JANUARY 2026 · CHECKED 27 SEP 2026Assent on 7 January, notified the next day. It amends sections 24, 53, 54 and 55 of the 1999 Act, and leaves deposits, rent revision, the length of a tenancy and registration where they were.
It is a decriminalisation law. A breach that could once mean a month in jail now means a fine. The fines are larger, most of them about ten times the old maximum, and they rise by a tenth every three years.
A law firm’s reading says it in one line: the amendment does not alter security deposit limits, rent revision or the duration of a tenancy. Khaitan & Co’s summary of the Act.
Where the three rules came from
The two-month deposit limit, the 60-day registration and the single yearly rent rise all come from the Model Tenancy Act.
That Act is a template. The central government published it in June 2021 for states to adopt, adapt or leave alone. A state has to pass its own law before any of it binds anyone, and Karnataka has not.
So the rules were real text in a real document, and Karnataka never made them law. Most of what was written about them this year missed that step, and this page did too until 27 September.
A template becomes law when a state passes it. Karnataka hasn’t.
Why the Rent Act doesn’t reach your home
The Act does not apply to a home whose rent is above ₹3,500 a month in the areas in Part A of its First Schedule, or above ₹2,000 anywhere else.
KARNATAKA RENT ACT, 1999, SECTION 2 · IN FORCE 2001 · CHECKED 27 SEP 2026The exclusion is of the whole Act. Every home we show is far above both figures.
The threshold was set when the Act was written. At today’s rents it leaves out almost every home in the city’s gated societies, and every home on this site.
Which is the plain answer to most questions about deposits and rent rises at our end of the market: no statute sets them. Your agreement does.
What does govern your tenancy
- Your agreement. Whatever it says about the deposit, notice, lock-in, rent revision and deductions is what you have.
- The general law of contract and of leases, which decides what an agreement can hold either of you to.
- The Registration Act, 1908, which requires a lease longer than a year to be registered and leaves an eleven-month agreement optional.
- Karnataka’s stamp law, which decides how the duty on the agreement is paid.
That is a thinner set of protections than the circulating rules promised. It also means the agreement carries more weight than most people give it. The questions worth asking before you sign.
What this means when you sign
Negotiable, with no legal ceiling at these rents. Four to six months is what the market asks. What you can change is how it is paid and when it comes back.
Required only above twelve months. Sometimes worth doing on a shorter agreement, for reasons that have nothing to do with a deadline.
Whatever the agreement says. If it says nothing, the next rent is a negotiation at renewal, so write the mechanism in now.
Where the deposit figure actually comes from is its own note. Ten months’ deposit isn’t always ten months’ deposit.
Checked against the Karnataka Rent Act, its 2025 amendment and the Registration Act on 27 September 2026. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you read these Acts differently, tell us and we will look again.
