An Encumbrance Certificate is a very important document for property verification. Any good lawyer will ask for Encumbrance Certificates for the last 30 years at least. An EC essentially captures all loans and property ownership transactions. For eg. If there is a home loan on a property it will be reflected in the EC. Additionally if the seller has already sold the property to someone else and is trying to sell it to you as well that will also be caught by verifying the EC.