Joint Development Agreement

Joint development agreement & GPA

In recent times, the most popular method for building apartments is by way of a Joint Development
agreement (JDA). This is an agreement signed between the landowner and the developer, where the
landowner gives the land to the developer to build and sell apartments; in return, he gets a fixed set of
apartments to sell. The landowner issues a GPA to the developer.

ii. Sharing agreement

The Sharing agreement shows the landowner’s share and developer’s share in a JDA. This helps the
buyer clarify whether the apartment/property for sale belongs to the developer’s or the landowner’s share
and check the validity of the seller.

iii. Call for inspection of original documents

Although the builder usually has all the original documents in his possession, he may have pledged the
property to a bank as collateral. In this case he may not have the originals. If so, the builder has to provide
a No-objection certificate (NOC) from the bank prior to the registration of the property, stating that the
money goes towards paying off the loan and the property in question is free of mortgage. When buying
the landowner’s share of the property, this scrutiny is slightly less crucial since the landowner’s share is
typically free of mortgage in most JDAs.
4. Documents for scrutiny for properties with an agricultural past

i. Pahani or RTC

The Pahani is a revenue record of tenancy and cultivation (RTC) that describes the rights, tenancy and
crops details for the property, such as owners’ details, area of the land, land revenue details, water rate,
soil type, nature of possession of the land, liabilities, crops grown etc. Ideally, the seller should have the
RTCs from 1969 to date, and all the mutations should be mentioned in the RTCs.

ii. Record of rights and index of lands

This document contains details such as the extent of the property, names of the owners etc. Although this
document has been discontinued by the Revenue department, it is useful in the tracing of titles. There are
reports that it is being unofficially issued, however.

iii. Mutation extract

The Mutation Extract is akin to an ‘agricultural khata’ and is issued by the village’s official accountant or
Tehsildar. It contains an extract from the mutation register with relevant details, such as those regarding
the previous owner, present owner, the mode of acquisition of the property by way of sale or inheritance,
and the total extent of the property.

iv. Tippani and Podi extract

Tippani is a hand-drawn sketch from the records of the Survey department with respect to a property
contained in a single survey number that is not bifurcated into sub-survey numbers issued by the Survey
department. For instance, Hissa Podi extract refers to a sketch showing fragments within a survey number
with sub-survey numbers such as 159/1, 159/2 etc.