Reference
The terms that decide a Gurgaon commercial deal, defined by what they mean for the person signing rather than by dictionary.
Most of the money in a commercial transaction is won or lost on terms that sound like administration. Loading, escalation, CAM and lock-in are not jargon — each one has a number attached, and each is quoted in whichever form flatters the party quoting it. These are the definitions we work from.
The usable floor area inside the walls of a unit — the space you can actually put people and equipment into.
Carpet area is what your business occupies. It excludes external walls, shared lobbies, corridors, lift cores and service areas. Almost no commercial space in Gurgaon is quoted on it, which is precisely why it is the figure to insist on: every meaningful cost comparison should be made per carpet square foot rather than on the advertised rate.
Calculate cost per carpet square foot →Carpet, built-up and super area explained →
Carpet area plus a proportionate share of the building's common areas — the figure commercial space is normally quoted on.
Super area adds your share of lobbies, corridors, lifts, staircases, service ducts and sometimes amenities. It is a commercial convention rather than a measurement of anything you occupy, and there is no universal standard for what a landlord may include in it. Two buildings can compute super area differently and both be defensible, which is why comparing quoted rates across buildings tells you very little.
Carpet area plus the area occupied by internal and external walls, and usually any balcony.
Built-up area sits between carpet and super area. It appears more often in construction and approval documents than in leasing conversations, but it turns up in older agreements and in plot-based development. When a quote references built-up area without saying so, the comparison against a super-area quote will be wrong by a material margin.
The gap between carpet and super area, expressed as a percentage — the proportion of what you pay for that you cannot occupy.
On Indian commercial stock loading commonly runs between 30% and 50%. It is rarely volunteered and almost never appears in marketing material. A building at 30% loading and one at 50% are selling materially different products at the same advertised rate, and the difference is large enough to reverse which option is genuinely cheaper.
Carpet area as a percentage of super area — loading described from the opposite direction.
Efficiency and loading measure the same relationship, and agents will quote whichever flatters the building. A unit described as 70% efficient carries roughly 43% loading. If a quote cites one, compute the other before comparing it against anything else.
The area a landlord actually bills against, which may differ from both carpet and super area.
Chargeable area matters most for maintenance charges, which are frequently levied on super area even where rent is negotiated differently. Establish which area each line of the outgoing is computed on. It is an easy question to skip and an expensive one to assume.
The total usable area of a single floor in a building.
Floor plate size determines whether a team fits on one level, which affects everything from supervision to internal culture. Larger plates on corridors like Sohna Road are a genuine functional advantage for headcount-heavy operations, and one of the clearest reasons an occupier chooses a less prestigious address.
The period during which a tenant cannot exit the lease without penalty, regardless of the total term.
Lock-in and lease term are routinely confused and are not the same commitment. A nine-year lease with a three-year lock-in is a three-year obligation with an option attached. Read the lock-in alongside the exit provisions and notice period — together they define what you are actually signing up to.
The contractual increase in rent applied at defined intervals across the lease term.
Escalation has two variables, a percentage and a frequency, and both matter because the effect compounds. A smaller increase applied every three years can cost more over a term than a larger one applied every five. Check whether it applies to the base rent or to the already-escalated figure, and whether there is any cap.
An initial period, typically granted for fit-out, during which no rent is payable.
Rent-free is usually the most negotiable term in a commercial lease and the one occupiers argue for least. It is worth establishing whether maintenance charges run during it — frequently they do — and whether the period is long enough for a realistic fit-out and approval timeline rather than an optimistic one.
The work required to turn a shell into a working space: flooring, ceilings, partitions, electrical, HVAC distribution and furniture.
Fit-out cost is the invisible half of an occupancy decision. A bare shell at a lower rent can be the more expensive option once fit-out is amortised over a short term. Establish what the landlord contributes, what reverts to them at the end, and what you are contractually required to reinstate.
A unit handed over as structure and basic services only — concrete floor, no ceiling, no air-conditioning distribution.
Bare shell gives complete control over layout and specification, at the cost of the longest and most expensive fit-out. It suits long leases where the investment can be recovered over the term, and operations with genuinely specific requirements. For a three-year commitment it rarely makes financial sense.
A unit delivered with basic flooring, ceiling grid and air-conditioning provision, but without partitions or furniture.
Warm shell is the common middle position in Gurgaon Grade-A stock. It removes the longest-lead fit-out items while leaving the layout open. When comparing quotes, confirm precisely what the warm shell includes — the term is used loosely and buildings differ on whether HVAC, false ceiling and basic electrical are inside or outside it.
A fully fitted unit with workstations, cabins, cabling and air-conditioning already in place, ready to occupy.
Plug and play commands a higher rent and almost no upfront capital, which suits shorter terms, smaller teams and businesses that cannot afford a fit-out delay. The trade-off is inheriting someone else's layout. Check the age and condition of what you are inheriting, and who is responsible for replacing it when it fails.
A refundable sum held by the landlord for the duration of the lease, usually expressed as a number of months' rent.
In commercial leasing the deposit is a substantial working-capital commitment and is often negotiable in a way the rent is not. Establish the refund mechanism and timeline in writing, what deductions are permitted, and whether the deposit escalates alongside rent.
The advance warning either party must give before terminating the lease.
Notice periods are frequently asymmetric, and the tenant's is usually longer. Read it together with the lock-in: a short lock-in paired with a long notice period is a longer commitment than it first appears.
The recurring charge for upkeep of shared areas and building services, levied separately from rent.
CAM is quoted per square foot and is usually charged on super area, which compounds the loading problem. In older stock it can be high enough to change which of two options is genuinely cheaper on a total-cost basis. Establish what it covers, how it has moved historically, and who sets it — a single-owner building and a strata-sold one behave very differently here.
Annual rent as a percentage of purchase price, before any costs are deducted.
Gross yield is the figure quoted in almost every pre-leased marketing document, and it is the least useful number in the conversation. It takes no account of maintenance borne by the owner, property tax, insurance, vacancy, re-letting costs or tax deducted at source. Two assets advertising the same gross yield can differ substantially in what actually reaches you.
Annual rent after deducting the costs of ownership, as a percentage of total acquisition cost.
Net yield is the number to underwrite on. Build it from the actual lease and the actual outgoings rather than accepting a headline — and include the acquisition costs, stamp duty and registration among them, not just the price.
A commercial unit sold with a tenant already in occupation under an existing lease, which transfers to the buyer.
The attraction is income from day one with no letting risk at the outset. The trade-off is that you inherit the lease exactly as written and are underwriting a specific occupier rather than a location. Establish who genuinely pays the rent, what remains of the term, and what happens when it ends.
An arrangement where a developer tops up the rent a tenant pays, in order to present a higher yield at the point of sale.
Common on newer projects and the single most frequent reason a pre-leased purchase disappoints. The advertised yield reflects the support rather than what the tenant will pay once it ends. Establish who is actually paying, for how long, and underwrite on the unsubsidised figure.
Tax deducted at source on rent paid for commercial property, under Section 194-I of the Income Tax Act.
TDS applies once annual rent crosses the applicable threshold and is deducted by the tenant before payment reaches the landlord. It is a cash-flow consideration for owners rather than an additional cost, but it is regularly omitted from yield calculations. Rates and thresholds change — confirm the current position with a qualified professional rather than relying on a figure in marketing material.
A state levy payable on the execution of a lease or sale instrument, calculated on the value of the transaction.
On a commercial lease in Haryana, stamp duty is computed on rent plus deposit and rises with the length of the term, which makes it a real input into the decision on lease length. Treat it as part of the entry cost rather than an administrative afterthought, and confirm current rates before budgeting.
Growth in the capital value of an asset over the holding period.
In commercial property, appreciation is driven by rental growth, the strength of the covenant and the liquidity of the asset rather than by area sentiment alone. A unit that is difficult to re-let or sell will underperform a comparable one in a well-run building regardless of what the corridor does.
The maximum electrical load formally approved for a unit or building by the supply utility.
Sanctioned load caps what you can run. Operations with servers, commercial kitchens, cold storage or heavy air-conditioning frequently need more than a unit is provisioned for, and enhancing a sanction is a process with its own cost and timeline rather than a formality. Confirm the figure before committing, not during fit-out.
Generator provision covering outages, expressed as either full-load or a limited allocation per unit.
Many Gurgaon buildings back up lifts and common areas completely while giving individual units a restricted allocation. For any operation that cannot tolerate downtime, full-load backup is a requirement rather than a preference — and the allocation should be written into the lease rather than described at a viewing.
The unobstructed vertical distance from floor to the lowest overhead obstruction.
Clear height governs stacking in a warehouse and the feasibility of services and mezzanines in an office or retail unit. It is measured to the lowest obstruction — a beam, duct or sprinkler line — not to the underside of the slab, and the difference between those two figures is where disputes begin.
The weight a floor slab is engineered to carry, usually stated per square foot or square metre.
Critical for warehousing, storage, and any office carrying compact filing, server racks or heavy equipment. It cannot be changed after the fact, so it belongs in the first round of questions rather than the last.
A device that separates fats and solids from kitchen wastewater before it enters the drainage system.
Effectively a condition of operating a commercial kitchen, and one of the constraints that quietly rules out otherwise attractive F&B sites. It needs somewhere to sit and access to be serviced. Retrofitting one into a unit never designed for food service is sometimes impractical and occasionally impossible.
The physical path a kitchen duct takes from the cooking line to an acceptable discharge point.
The single most common reason a restaurant site search fails. The route has to physically exist, cross space you are permitted to use, and terminate somewhere that does not create a nuisance for other occupiers. Buildings not designed for food service frequently offer no viable route at all, and this cannot be solved by negotiation.
The certificate confirming a building has been completed in accordance with approved plans and is fit for occupation.
Occupying a building without a valid OC carries real exposure, and financing and resale both become harder. Confirm not only that the building holds one but that the specific unit is covered by it — partial certification exists and is easy to miss.
The activities a unit is formally approved for under its land use and building approvals.
Retail, office and food service are treated differently, and a unit approved for one may not accommodate another. This is where most F&B plans meet reality. Confirm permitted use for the specific unit rather than the building in general, and confirm it before signing rather than during licensing.
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, and the state authorities constituted under it.
In Haryana the Act is administered through HRERA Gurugram and HRERA Panchkula. Registration is required for qualifying projects, and separately for agents facilitating transactions in registered projects. Both registers are public, which makes them a straightforward way to verify who you are dealing with.
The documented sequence of ownership transfers establishing that the current seller holds clear title.
Everything else in a purchase is wasted effort if the title is unclear. On resale units, confirm there are no outstanding dues attached to the unit — they travel with the property, and discovering them after an agreement to sell is a poor negotiating position.
Development approval granted by Haryana's Department of Town and Country Planning for a planned scheme.
A licence establishes that the scheme was planned and approved rather than assembled informally. For plot-based commercial formats it is the first thing to verify, because the permissible construction parameters flow from the sanctioned layout.
Formal registration of a lease instrument with the sub-registrar, required for leases above a threshold term.
An unregistered lease has materially weaker evidentiary standing in a dispute. Occupiers sometimes accept an unregistered arrangement to save the stamp cost — a poor trade, since it saves a one-off percentage against the security of the entire occupation.
Shop-cum-office: an independent freehold commercial plot within a licensed scheme, on which the owner builds a low-rise block.
You own the land and the structure rather than a unit inside a developer's building, which means control over construction, tenanting and maintenance — and responsibility for all three. It is not an income-producing asset on the day you buy it: design, approvals, construction and letting all sit between purchase and first rent.
An informal market classification for the highest specification commercial stock in a market.
Grade A is a relative and unregulated label — it means the best available in that market, not a defined standard, and it is applied generously. Judge the building on the specifics that matter to your operation rather than on the grading: services, efficiency, parking, management quality and how it performs at peak hours.
A building sold off floor by floor or unit by unit to many individual owners, rather than held by a single landlord.
Fragmented ownership affects how a building is run over its life. Funding shared upkeep requires agreement among many owners, and standards drift when that agreement is hard to reach. It also narrows the pool of future buyers, which shows up in the price you eventually realise.
Retail units fronting directly onto a road, with their own entrance, rather than sitting inside a mall.
High street trades on visibility, frontage and passing traffic, with fewer restrictions on hours and operation than a mall. It also generates its own footfall rather than inheriting it, which makes the unit-level questions — frontage width, natural approach, customer parking — decisive in a way mall units are not.
A large, recognisable occupier whose presence draws footfall for the rest of a development.
In retail, the anchor is much of what you are buying when you take a smaller unit nearby. Establish the remaining term on the anchor's lease before committing — a development built around an anchor that leaves is a materially different proposition.
Space provided with fit-out, furniture and services bundled into a single monthly charge, on shorter and more flexible terms.
The comparison against a conventional lease is rarely like-for-like: the headline seat rate bundles rent, maintenance, utilities, internet and amenity that a direct lease charges separately. For small or uncertain teams the flexibility is often worth the premium; beyond a certain headcount and time horizon it rarely is.
Compiled by Durgesh Handa, who advises occupiers and investors on commercial property across Gurgaon. Where a definition touches a statutory matter — stamp duty, registration, tax deducted at source — it describes the general position as we understand it. Rates and thresholds change; confirm the current position with a qualified professional. See our information policy.
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