Assured Return / Lease Guarantee Agreement

स्टाम्प ड्यूटी

This Agreement is not a lease, a conveyance, a mortgage or a gift — it is a contract under which the Developer promises to pay money — so it does not fall under any of the named instruments in Schedule I-A to the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 as applicable in Punjab or in Chandigarh. Like the Agreement for Sale itself, it falls to the residuary Article 5 (Agreement or Memorandum of an Agreement). PUNJAB: the Revenue Department's published table has no dedicated row for this kind of agreement, exactly as for an Agreement for Sale. Ask the Sub-Registrar of the tehsil what Article 5 comes to before buying the stamp paper, and buy the e-stamp on igrpunjab.gov.in dated on or before the day of signing. CHANDIGARH: the same position applies at the Sub-Registrar, U.T. Chandigarh, 30 Bays Building, Sector 17 — confirm the Article 5 figure there before buying paper; e-stamping is arranged through the same office, and revenue.chd.gov.in carries the current process. ONE ORIGINAL is enough for execution; a counterpart or duplicate is separately chargeable under Article 25 of the same Schedule in both jurisdictions. IF THE SECURITY CHOSEN IS A MORTGAGE OR CHARGE ON ANOTHER ASSET (clause 6), that mortgage or charge is a SEPARATE instrument from this Agreement, attracts its own duty under the mortgage articles of Schedule I-A, and is dealt with in the registration note below — do not assume this Agreement's stamp paper covers it. Under-stamping leaves this Agreement inadmissible in evidence except on payment of the deficiency and a penalty of up to ten times the deficiency under s.35 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, and impounded until that is paid.

रजिस्ट्री

NOT ORDINARILY COMPULSORY, for a reason worth stating precisely rather than assuming. Section 17(1)(b) of the Registration Act, 1908 compels registration of a non-testamentary instrument that creates, declares, assigns, limits or extinguishes a right, title or interest in immovable property. A plain promise to pay money — even money calculated by reference to a specific unit's value, and even called a "lease guarantee" — is a personal, contractual right to be paid, not an interest IN the Unit itself, so this Agreement on its own does not fall within s.17(1)(b) and is not compulsorily registrable merely because it exists. THAT CHANGES if the security chosen under clause 6 is a mortgage or charge over another specific immovable property of the Developer. A mortgage securing repayment of money, other than by deposit of title deeds, is itself an instrument s.17(1)(b) and s.17(1)(c) of the Registration Act, 1908 compel to be registered, wherever the mortgaged property is worth Rs 100 or more — which in practice means always. That mortgage document, when it exists, is a separate instrument from this Agreement and must independently be registered at the Sub-Registrar for the tehsil in which the mortgaged property lies (Punjab, via igrpunjab.gov.in) or at the Sub-Registrar, U.T. Chandigarh, 30 Bays Building (for Chandigarh property), within four months of execution under s.23, with a further four months available on a fine under s.25. VOLUNTARY REGISTRATION of this Agreement itself, even where clause 17(1)(b) does not compel it, is available under s.18 of the Registration Act, 1908 and is worth considering given the value and duration of the payment obligation — it fixes the date of execution beyond dispute and gives the document public notice. Clause 8 of this Agreement records whether the parties have instead chosen to fold its terms into the registered Agreement for Sale, in which case this separate registration question does not arise because the promise is already part of a document being registered for other reasons. An unregistered instrument that did not need registration is not rendered inadmissible by s.49 of the Registration Act, 1908 — that section only disables a document that ought to have been, and was not, registered.

नोटरी

Not compulsory, and not a substitute for registration where clause 6 uses a mortgage as security — nothing in s.17 or s.49 of the Registration Act, 1908 is satisfied by notarisation. Because this Agreement typically does not need to be registered at all (see above), notarisation is the practical way to fix the date and the fact of execution beyond later dispute, and is worth doing even though the law does not compel it — particularly where the parties have chosen, under clause 8, to keep this Agreement separate from the registered Agreement for Sale rather than annexed to it. Where the security is a bank guarantee, the guarantee instrument itself is issued and stamped by the bank under its own process and is not notarised as part of this Agreement.

गवाह

No statute requires an attesting witness on a contract of this kind. Two are asked for here because, if this Agreement is later produced before a court, a regulator or an arbitrator — and a document promising money over a period of years is more likely than most to be produced somewhere — a witness who can be traced and can identify the signatures is worth having contemporaneously, not reconstructed later from memory. Choose two adults who are not employees of the Developer and are not related to either party. If this Agreement is voluntarily registered under s.18 of the Registration Act, 1908, both witnesses should also be prepared to attend the registering office with the executants.