The Vastu Checklist to Run Before You Buy a Flat

No flat scores perfectly. Modern buildings are laid out around structure, parking and saleable area, and the odds of all four of the entrance, kitchen, master bedroom and bathrooms landing in the right quarter are not good.

So the useful question is not whether a flat is compliant. It is which defects are worth walking away from, and which are a Saturday's work after you move in. By our reckoning two are worth walking away from, and only if you genuinely have a choice between units.

Key points

• Measure from the centre of your own unit, against true north.
• Check in this order: entrance, kitchen, master bedroom. Then the rest.
• The entrance is decided by the pada, not by the compass quarter.
• Worth walking away from: a toilet in the North-East, and a toilet in the centre.
• Nearly everything else is correctable without touching a wall.

Before you go

Ask for two drawings: the scaled plan of the specific unit, and the site plan with north marked. The second one matters more than people expect — a compass inside a concrete shell is unreliable, and a surveyed drawing is not.

Calibrate your compass app and make sure it is set to true north rather than magnetic. The difference is enough in parts of India to move a reading into the neighbouring pada.

1. The entrance

Stand at the geometric centre of the flat, face the front door, and take the bearing out through it. Not from the doorway; the centre of the plan is the reference point for every bearing in Vastu.

Take it three times, stepping back a pace between each, and use the value that repeats. Reinforcement in the slab, the steel frame and the consumer unit all pull a compass around.

Then place that bearing in a pada. The outer edge divides into thirty-two arcs of 11.25° each, eight to a side, and this resolution is the whole point of the system — two doors can both be "south facing" and land in padas the tradition rates opposite ways.

S5 Yama begins at 180°, immediately after the one south pada worth aiming for. Twelve degrees decides it. The main door guide has the direction-level ranking and the corridor post has the full thirty-two.

2. The kitchen

The South-East is the fire quarter and where a kitchen belongs. Anywhere else is workable, and the remedy is a stone slab under the hob rather than a renovation:

• A water quarter (North, North-East) — green Baroda marble, at least half an inch thick, as an earth barrier between the fire and the water.
• The South-West — yellow Jaisalmer, reinforcing the earth the fire is destabilising.

Both sit on the counter with the hob on top. Neither is fixed to anything, which is what makes them work in a rental. The kitchen guide covers the rest.

What to check on the visit: that a slab will physically fit under the hob, that the sink is not immediately beside it, and that there is a working extract to outside.

3. Sleeping, and the centre

The master bedroom wants the South-West, or failing that the most southerly or westerly room. What you are checking is whether the bed can be placed with the head to the South or East against a solid wall — in some rooms the window and door positions make that impossible, and that is worth knowing before you sign.

Also check no bedroom wall backs onto a bathroom plumbing stack. That is a noise and damp question as much as a traditional one.

The Brahmasthan is the central ninth of the footprint. Walk it. If there is a toilet in it, see below. If there is a column, that is ordinary engineering and the Brahmasthan post covers living with one.

4. The two worth walking away from

A toilet in the North-East, and a toilet in the centre of the plan.

Not because they are unfixable — we have written the remedies and they are real: lid down, door shut, vented outside, pale colours, strong light, raw sea salt replaced fortnightly. If you already live with one, that is the work and it is worth doing.

The reason they are different from everything else on this list is that you cannot move a plumbing stack in an apartment. Every other defect here has a remedy that changes the condition; these two have remedies that manage it. If you are choosing between units and one of them has this and another does not, that is the tiebreaker.

Anyone telling you it cannot be neutralised is overstating, and anyone telling you it does not matter is understating.

5. The shape of the plan

Square and rectangular plans are the easiest to zone. Cut corners — where a balcony, duct or shaft has taken a bite out of the rectangle — are extremely common and mostly workable. Note which quarter the cut takes from, keep what remains of it clear, and put the weight in the quarters you do have. The property comparison goes into this.

6. What the brochure will not tell you

Ask these out loud, and write down who answered:

• Where is the underground tank, and where is the overhead one?
• Is there stilt parking under this unit?
• Which walls back onto a lift shaft or a services riser?
• Which way does the block face on the approved drawing, not the marketing one?

Take the sheet with you

Everything above is on one printable A4 sheet, with tick boxes and the favourable entrance arcs printed on it so you do not have to remember the degrees at a viewing.

Download the flat viewing checklist (PDF)

It is two pages, it prints on a home printer, and it costs nothing. The degrees on it are generated from the same table this post uses, so the two cannot disagree.

The mistakes

Rejecting a flat for not being fully compliant. Nothing is. Judge it on whether the defects are correctable.

Guessing direction from the balcony. Take the bearing from the centre of the flat, with a compass, three times.

Measuring the tower instead of the unit. Your plan is your registered flat.

Buying an object instead of checking the layout. Pyramids, yantras and copper coils get sold hard to people at exactly this stage. We have written about what that category is.

When a consultation earns its fee

If you are down to two or three shortlisted units and want a tiebreaker, if a plan is irregular or wraps the core, or if you want the layout read against the chart of the person who will live there — that last one is the Astro-Vastu part. For a single straightforward rectangle, the sheet above will get you most of the way. Our services page covers what an audit includes, and pricing starts at ₹1,000.