BOP Group - Real Estate Noida, Greater Noida

Greater Noida realty rates down by 30 per cent after scrapping of Jewar airport project

BOP Group — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:09:06 +0000

Soaring high on the hope that an international airport would come up at Jewar, the real estate boom in Greater Noida and around Yamuna Expressway has gone bust, pricked by the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to scrap the airport.

Developers have invested between Rs.4,000 crore and Rs.5,000 crore in the region. If the airport had taken off driving the real estate frenzy, the gains they say would have been an impressive Rs.70,000 crore to Rs.80,000 crore.

Up to 50 builders have invested around the Yamuna Expressway, a superhighway connecting Delhi and Agra via Noida and Greater Noida in the National Capital Region (NCR).

Barely a week after the Uttar Pradesh government cancelled the airport plan, land prices are already down by 25-30 per cent.

The airport, former chief minister of the state Mayawati’s pet project, was billed as the engine of an economic zone that would drive growth in the Greater Noida-Yamuna Expressway region. The announcement of the airport in early 2000 was followed by a dam-burst of investment in the region’s real estate sector in the following years.

The investor outlook now looks grim.

“It was a high-investment area for both developers and buyers. But now it makes little sense for them to go 60-70 kilometres away from Delhi and buy property there,” Shiv Priya, the executive director of Amrapali Group, said.

The sentiment is echoed by others. “The only basis for the Yamuna Expressway till a few days ago was that it would have been colocated with the airport,” Sachin Khullar, a real estate investor, said. “Now that the airport has been scrapped, the place is no longer an attractive investment destination.”

Source : Article India Today.

Amendments in GAAR by Finance Minister: Key takeaways

BOP Group — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:48:19 +0000

The Finance Minister has announced withdrawal of TDS on immovable property as proposed in Budget, a move that would bring respite to the investors and industry alike.

GAAR is aimed at curbing tax avoidance by structuring a business or effecting a transaction with the objective of avoiding the tax liability instead of rational commercial considerations, so the amendment will remove the onus on the tax payer.

“It is an excellent move, as TDS was totally unnecessary,” said R R Singh, director-general, National Real Estate Development Council. “Property buyers would benefit from the withdrawal. This would have been an additional burden on taxation,” he said.

Earlier, the Finance Bill proposed TDS on the transfer of immovable property (other than agricultural land) at one per cent of the transaction value. The threshold was Rs 50 lakh in case of properties in a specified urban conglomerate, or Rs 20 lakh in case the property was in any other area.

Lalit Jain, chairman, Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India, said it was a sensible move, as TDS would have created additional administrative costs for the government, without much gain. Moreover, it would have been a burden on consumers. When asked if one per cent was too big a burden, Jain said though in financial terms, one per cent TDS was meagre, it would have led to administrative havoc, owing to the paperwork and other formalities related to it

About 80 per cent of townships or group housing is carried out by state governments, while just 10-20 per cent is accounted for by private developers. Neither land, nor customers were provided by the Centre. So, why would TDS revenue go to the Centre, he argued. The TDS would only have escalated property prices and ultimately discouraged buyers, says Sunil Dahiya, managing director, Vigneshwara Developers.

The finance minister also said that tax for NRI investors will be slashed to 10 per cent from 20 per cent.

Properties at Noida, Greater Noida, and Yamuna Expressway to become free-hold

BOP Group — Sat, 05 May 2012 12:43:34 +0000

The new ownership policy recently announced by the UP govt. could mean free hold of properties at Noida, Greater Noida, and even Yamuna Expressway.

Currently, land is allotted on lease for 90 years in Noida-Greater Noida. The authorities have formulated different slabs for the annual lease and charge 10% for residential property and 27.5% for institutional , industrial and commercial establishments, of the total value of the property.

With the implementation of the new ownership policy, when land will be allotted on free-hold , those who have bought or are planning to buy flats or plots from builders or the authority could actually become the owners.

According to urban land policy (being followed by the Delhi Development Authority ), land ownership is of two types: free-hold or lease-hold . In free-hold , ownership is for the perpetuity while in leasehold , it is for specified time, which can vary between 30 years and 100 years, in general.

In Delhi, up to 2008, of the 82,948.84 acres of acquired land, 75,609.84 acres has been allocated for residential, commercial , institutional, industrial , green areas and infrastructure projects like roads.

Initially, the whole of the land was given to end users on lease, with the authorities being paid ground rent; but slowly, all these are being converted into free-hold property, as the authorities are facing an uphill task in realizing the dues with thousands of cases pending in the government departments. Therefore, the DDA decided that most of the land should be free-hold except institutional and commercial.

The UP government has taken a leaf out of this experience and has decided to follow suit. It is highly likely that the other NCR cities like Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad will also convert the ownership policy from lease-hold to free-hold .

Impact of the proposed land-ownership policy:

In Noida-Greater Noida, individual buyers, even builders, are not the actual owners of the property on which they have invested a huge sum of money in constructing buildings and developing physical infrastructure like roads and sewerage. According to the existing lease policy, flats and plots are subleased by the authorities to users. From the records provided by development authorities in Noida, of a total of 20,316 hectares, around 10,000 hectares has already been developed.

The remaining area will be developed in the next phase. According to the master plan of Yamuna Development Authority , of a total of 2,30,000 hectares (up to Agra), 50,000 hectares (up to Jewar) is being developed in Phase 1, for both residential and commercial purposes.

In Greater Noida, 49.7% of a total of 36,000 hectares has been used for residential (23%), commercial (7%), and industrial (19.7%) development. The Master Plan 2031 of the Noida authority hopes to build 2.5 lakh new houses along the expressway and adjacent to Noida Extension in the next three years. Out of this, nearly one lakh houses are being constructed along the expressway under group-housing projects. The remaining 1.5 lakh houses have been proposed adjacent to Noida Extension and Sectors 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 113, 116 and 117.

Once the new land ownership policy is implemented, several buyers, developers, and even the development authority (in terms of revenue generation) will be benefited.

Power of attorney property deals banned in Delhi wef Oct 2011

BOP Group — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:55:37 +0000

The Delhi government’s revenue department has declared all property sales through transfer of general power of attorney null and void with restrospective effect from October, 2011, through thousands of property transactions in Delhi under a cloud, The Times of India reported today.

The order, dated April 27, directs all 13 sub-registrar offices, DDA and NDMC to follow the Supreme Court’s order last October that no sale deed will be registered if it is through a GPA transfer.This means transactions carried out since October on GPA transfers will have to be registered afresh with complete documents.

On average, around 20 per cent of registries are done through GPA transfers, a common way of selling leasehold properties and those that don’t have a clear title.

In Delhi’s northwest district, for instance, of 5,300 documents registered across three sub-registrar offices in March, 1,157 were GPA transfer registries.

Bankers said the proportion of GPA transfers were even higher in sales involving bank loans.

Top revenue department officials said that as this was a Supreme Court order, it should have been implemented at the sub-registrar offices since October.

They admitted, however, that registrars have only stopped registering such sale deeds after the April 27 directive from the revenue secretary and divisional commissioner Vijay Dev.

Property dealers say, the order will reduce the number of saleable properties in the capital and lead to a hike in the value of properties on freehold land.

Citing the October 11, 2011, judgment of the Supreme Court, the revenue department circular says, “It is reiterated that immovable property can be legally and lawfully transferred only by a registered deed of conveyance (sale deed)… ‘GPA sales’ of ‘SA (sale agreement)/ GPA/will transfer’ do not convey title and do not amount to transfer, nor can they be recognized as valid mode of transfer of immovable property. The court will not treat such transactions as completed…”

To ensure that the Supreme Court order is followed, circulars are issued, informing all officials involved in registration of documents to not register any sale deeds on a GPA transfer.

He said it was required as GPA transfer transactions left no evidence of how many hands a property might have changed hands.

There are also loopholes in GPA transfer cases as property papers may not be complete or a property may not have the requisite completion certificates.

In such cases, Dev said, there were greater chances of a buyer landing in litigation.

The implementation of the court order would mean cleaner transactions with clear title deeds and also higher revenue to the state as each sale of the same property will have to be duly registered on payment of stamp duty, he said.

The retrospective order has thrown thousands of property sales after October on GPA into uncertainty.

Owners who bought property on GPA because it lacked perfect documentation are now in trouble because legally the property remains in the seller’s name.

Both parties will now have to initiate the process of transfer of property through clear sale deed.

For example, co-operative societies that do not have a completion certificate because the builder did not follow rules during construction. A flat owner in such a society, who may be in possession of the property for decades, will not be able to sell it.

Most of apartments in cooperative housing societies and DDA condominiums are sold though GPA.

Now, if the societies have completition certificate and the original buyer has cleared all the dues, these property can be converted into freehold. Only after that its owner can sell it through registered sale deed.

Anshuman Magazine, MD of global consultancy firm CBRE 9South Asia), said that banning transactions through GPA would bring in transparency .

“But before issuing the order, the government should have conducted a special drive to give completion certificates to properties,” he said.

Also facing uncertainty are houses in unauthorized colonies because very few properties here have a clear title . These house owners too would have encounter problems in selling the property.

The order also provides an opportunity for middlemen to take advantage of the crisis as the demand for converting properties to freehold is likely to surge.

In practice, such conversions are usually carried out through touts.

What is a general power of attorney in property transactions?

BOP Group — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:50:19 +0000

What is a general power of attorney? Why is it essential to have GPA registerd ? What effect the ban will have on property prices? and other commonly asked questions…

A power of attorney is an instrument that is used by people to confer authority on somebody else to legally act on their behalf. They can be of two types – special power of attorney (SPA) and general power of attorney (GPA). While an SPA is used for transfer of a specific right to the person on whom it is conferred, the GPA authorizes the holder to do whatever is necessary. For example, in property ‘sales’ using this instrument, the buyer gets a GPA from the seller not only for his own use of the property, but for further ‘sale’ to someone else if he so desires. Of course, a GPA holder can only ‘sell’ the property through another GPA.

Why is this used in property transactions?

Many properties cannot technically be sold for a variety of reasons. For instance, the original owner may have got it from an institution like DDA at a below-market rate and DDA may have imposed a minimum period for which it must be held. Any sale before this period is not legally possible, so a GPA may be resorted to. Or, the property could be part of a housing society which has got the land on lease. In such cases, the ‘owner’ of the property actually has only a certificate from the society allowing him to use it, but not to sell it. It is only when the property is converted from lease-hold to free-hold that he gets the title to the property. That is when he actually becomes the owner and, hence, is entitled to sell it.

How is the GPA used in such cases?

The person wanting to sell grants a GPA to the buyer. Typically, the buyer will insist that the GPA must be ‘irrevocable’, since he wants to ensure that the seller does not renege on the deal after the money has been paid. He will also insist on a will and perhaps even on all legal heirs of the seller submitting affidavits revoking their claim to the property. The GPA also specifies that he has the right to sell the property when it is saleable or transfer it to anybody else at his discretion. Typically, the right to get the property converted to free-hold is also specified in the GPA.

Why does a GPA have to be registered?

The government realized properties were being bought and sold through GPAs and no stamp duty was being paid on these transactions. To stop this and boost its revenues, in 2004, the Delhi government made it mandatory for GPAs to be registered at 90% of the stamp duty rate applicable to sale deeds. It made it clear the GPAs that are not registered will have no legal validity.

What has the Supreme Court done?

In October, SC ordered that no further transfer of property should be allowed through GPAs. Most states banned the use of GPAs for this purpose soon thereafter. But the Delhi government passed an order to this effect only last week.

What effect will this have?

For the future, it means properties that cannot legally be sold will become truly immoveable. As for the past, transactions for properties in Delhi for which GPAs have been conferred since October 11, 2011, become null and void for legal purposes.

If someone has bought a property on a GPA which has been registered prior to October 2011 and now wants to sell it, can he sell it?

A sale will be possible only if the property has been converted to freehold and title for the property obtained. The GPA on its own will not suffice. If the conversion to freehold hasn’t been done but is allowed, the GPA can be used to do the conversion.
Will property prices go up or down?

Properties which are freehold and to which title is clear will become more expensive as the supply of saleable properties will come down since those held on GPA cannot be sold.

Source : TOI Article

PRICE OF FREEHOLD PROPERTIES MAY RISE THE ORDER

BOP Group — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:30:12 +0000

No sale deed will be registered if it is through transfer on general power of attorney All transactions carried out since last October on GPA transfer now null and void. Both sellers and buyers will have to initiate registration process afresh with complete documents

THE EFFECT

Properties that can’t legally be sold will become truly immovable If someone has bought a property on GPA and registered it prior to Oct 2011, a sale will be possible only if the property has been converted to freehold and clear title for the property obtained If conversion to freehold hasn’t been done, but is allowed, the GPA can be used to do the conversion

IMPACT ON PRICES

Properties which are freehold and to which title is clear likely to become more expensive Supply of saleable properties will drop since those held on GPA can’t be sold.

Source : TOI Article

The New destination for Luxury – Destination Noida

BOP Group — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:18:29 +0000

Be it the circular shaped apartments by supertech group or the Y shaped garden isles by jaypee group, real estate developers in Noida are raising the bar with every new project they come up with, resulting in an equal rise in the demand of luxury and style. With the Indian employment scenario positively affecting the amount of disposable income, buyers are now able to realize their dream of buying and living in luxury homes.

The sellers, who are well aware of this change in the trend and the sudden increase in the demand of ‘luxury homes’ are reaping the benefits of this changed trend and have increased the development of high-end apartments and flats matching the global standard of luxury, style and comfort. These projects are situated in prime locations with good road connectivity and efficient infrastructure. A good drainage system, water supply, sewer lines, internal electricity system are also some of the reasons why these destinations earn brownie points.

There was a time when buyers used to move towards Gurgoan if they wanted luxurious homes; today when Noida’s development drive is in full swing, buyers have shifted their attention and are choosing to experience the luxury that Noida has to offer.

This is the right time to invest in the upcoming projects along the expressway or projects in already established communities in Noida, as the only direction where the investment is going to go is UP.

‘Noida, Greater Noida priority for government.’

BOP Group — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 12:37:10 +0000

On a visit to Greater Noida on Saturday, the UP urban development minister, Azam Khan, said the twin cities of Noida and Greater are given top priority by the government.

The minister, who was presiding over the prize distribution ceremony of NIT engineering college, said emphasis would be laid on preserving natural resources of the cities as well as reining in the builder lobby. Khan said “scams are being unearthed ever since the SP assumed power and we assure the people that adequate punishment will be awarded to the guilty in due course”.

The minister said water shortage would be dealt with by putting in place water-harvesting measures to recharge groundwater. “We will bring in new policies to deal with groundwater misuse,” said Khan. He said attempts will be made to expedite the resolution of the Noida Extension-Greater Noida land row.

Source : TOI Article

Greater Noida to get bus services at doorstep : says UPSRTC

BOP Group — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:21:49 +0000

To make travel within the city easier, the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) has now extended its services to cater to residential sectors in Greater Noida. Twenty buses that picked up passengers only from Pari Chowk to go to Noida or Delhi, will now circulate within residential and internal sectors across the city.

Passengers, who earlier needed to come from their homes or offices to Pari Chowk to catch a bus to Noida or Delhi, can now get a bus from near their homes. To begin with, buses will go to areas like Sector P-3 near the Senior Citizens Society, P-7 near Judges Colony, Jalvayu Vihar, Amity Chowk, Jagat Farms and Knowledge Park.

“Till now, residents who wished to go to Delhi or Noida from areas like the Greater Noida Authority, Amity Chowk and Senior Citizens’ Society had to first come to Pari Chowk to catch a bus since there was no direct route to the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway. However, now, the buses pick them up from near their residences or place of work, saving them time and effort,” said K K Sharma, UPSRTC assistant regional manager for the Greater Noida region.

“A total of 20 buses have been assigned for the new route but for now, we are running 15 buses. According to the new route, these buses do not need to touch Pari Chowk anymore. Instead, after picking up the passengers from their designated sectors, they will go to the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway via the underpass near Yamuna Expressway Authority,” said an official.

According to UPSRTC officials, the new service has received an “encouraging feedback” from the public and they will soon add more buses to the new schedule to cater to all the major sectors in the city.

However, many residents are complaining that because buses have been assigned new routes, passengers at Pari Chowk are forced to wait for over half an hour for UPSRTC buses to go to Noida. Residents complain that while the UPSRTC buses have never actually stuck to a schedule, since last week, the frequency of buses has drastically reduced.

Sharma though, claims that this problem is temporary one. “The new schedule is not well advertised so many residents still wait at Pari Chowk. Besides, a total of 69 UPSRTC buses ply between Noida and Greater Noida at an interval of 12 minutes,” he said.

Source : Times of India Article

Know your City : Facts on Noida

BOP Group — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:12:32 +0000

Most people have heard and also own a part of this upcoming and beautiful place, but did you know these facts about your much loved Noida?

Noida was setup as part of an urbanization existence thrust during the controversial emergency period (1975-1977) under the UP Industrial Development Act, 1976.
Noida stands at 17^th place when it comes to cleanliness in India leaving Gurgaon and Faridabad in the NCR far behind.
Noida is ONLY about 20km South-East of New Delhi.
Noida falls in the catchment area of the Yamuna and is located on the old river bed – its soil being rich and loamy.
Noida is one of the fastest developing and revenue generating cities.
Noida has been put on the fast track for the Delhi Metro with the first line inaugurated in Novemeber, 2010 – 10 months before the commonwealth games.
Property rates in Noida have gone up 10 folds in the last few years

I can go on elaborating on the advantages of Noida as a residential and also a commercial place and the list would be endless. To summarize, Noida is a complete city with a full industrial sector – an IT Hub – Popular Schools and Medical facilities – Sports, with the formula 1 track and excellent connectivity.

Come, explore Noida with BOP and own a piece of this remarkable city.Contact an expert @ info@bopgroup.in