Noida witnesses increasing demand for freehold property

For the past few months, Noida property market is observing the customers rising demand to change their present leasehold land to freehold land. This will allow the residents to have a complete right on the land as well as the property. For the same, many customers in Noida along with some NGOs and developers are interested to get their lands converted into freehold. Certain days also saw people protesting at the Noida authorities and ultimately the authorities are also planning to provide the residents what they desire.

Freehold Property
If someone has purchased a freehold property then that person own the land it is built on and also the house. In case of apartments, the owner of the house becomes a share holder in the property. They can live there for as long as they desire. They will have the right to make alterations in the house or redo some parts of the house.
They might have to take permission from authorities if they have to make structural changes, particularly with old buildings. In India, mostly houses are sold as freehold property but apartments are mostly on lease, however, this too is changing as many flats are getting sold as freehold.

Leasehold Property
In case someone has purchased a leasehold property; then they have the right to live in a property for a stipulated period of time. Here the buyer is not the owner of the property or the land it is situated upon. In case of a leasehold property, they will have to pay ground rent to the owner or the leaseholder. Once the set period in the lease expires, the ownership of the property is given back to the land owner.

Most leases are roughly given for period of 99 years. If anyone is buying a leasehold property, it is important to find out how long the lease is for as it will influence the value of the property. It is possible to extend the leasehold to up to 999 years and one can actually purchase the leasehold property, but by paying a price for it.To conclude, it can be understood that buying a freehold property is more preferable than the leasehold property as freehold are more stable and are likely to increase in value in the longer term. For these very reasons, residents of Noida are willing to get their properties to be converted into freehold as they can then become the complete owners till eternity.

Ashok Gupta, CMD, Ajnara India Ltd says, “Freehold property have been quite popular in cities such as Delhi where one gets the rights of the land and is also free to make structural changes. But these are more suitable in houses built by development authorities or plotted developments. In Noida, there are high rise apartments mainly on lease where one can live as long as he wants and more or less a freehold property in this case won’t matter much. But yes freehold properties will surely being in more developments in places like Noida and Greater Noida.”

Vipul Gupta, MD, Neobrix says, “Noida and Greater Noida markets are extreme opposites of each other. One is nearly sold out and other has just started. The decision to convert leasehold to freehold will revive the Noida market and boost the Greater Noida and other upcoming micro-markets. This step is expected to bring upon a revolution in NCR real estate sector for sure.”

Hrishi Kumar

Hrishi is a young management graduate with experience in the field of branding and marketing.Currently, he is the manager at Integrated Centre for Consultancy Pvt. Ltd (ICCPL)

The views expressed in this article are the author´s own.