This piece summarizes several key takeaways about property rights and informal housing markets from in-depth interviews with key informants, including housing brokers, in 35 slums in Bengaluru. The authors identified at least eighteen different official papers that have been given out to slum dwellers by one or another official agency at different stages in the slum notification process, constituting a tenure continuum. They find that although the legal process for a slum to become notified and for residents to access various individual housing documents is straightforward, ground realities are more ambiguous, and residents as a result misperceive the legal value of their housing status.

This Data Tale presents the complexity of housing documentation possessed by residents of slums in Bangalore. Based on an extensive survey by the authors, the findings of which are detailed in an accompanying opinion piece, they document 18 different kinds of documents, divided into three categories. These are listed here with accompanying illustrative images where available.