In one of the biggest high-rise deals in India, the promoters of Mumbai-based real estate major K Raheja Corp have decided to keep possession of three floors of their ritzy project in Mumbai—sprawled over 60,000 sq ft and worth Rs 426 crore—registration documents accessed by IndexTap showed.
The project named Artesia, an iconic stand-alone 45-storey tower, is located in Worli and has an expansive view of the Arabian Sea and the Bandra Worli Sea link.
In all real estate projects, the amount paid for by customers gets deposited in a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) account created by the real estate developers. If developers decide to hold onto units in apartments, they must follow the same process.
In the case of Artesia, the promoters—Ravi and Neel Raheja and their mother Jyoti Raheja—have bought three full floors (41, 43 and 44) and apartments on the 42nd and 45th floors and paid a total stamp duty of Rs 8.4 crore on the total value of Rs 426 crore. The Rahejas have like other industrialists and celebrities taken advantage of the stamp duty cut announced by the Maharashtra government, the documents showed.
When contacted, K Raheja Corp declined to comment.
The first set of apartments is spread over 20,916 sq ft for which Rs 146 crore was paid; the second set at 20,336 sq ft for which Rs 143 crore was paid and the third tranche at 19,463 sq ft for which Rs 137 crore was paid. All sets come with 14 car parkings, the registration document said.
The deal was closed in December 2020 but was registered in April 2021, IndexTap quoted the registration dates as saying, adding the 2% stamp duty benefit has been availed for this deal.
IndexTap is a platform that provides comparable transactions data across residential, commercial and loan transactions.
The per sq ft rate for the Raheja units works out to be around 70,000 per sq ft, according to some local brokers Moneycontrol contacted. Transactions in the luxury segment were at their peak during the stamp duty waiver period spread six months during the first wave COVID-19, they said.
On August 26, the Maharashtra government decided to temporarily reduce stamp duty on housing units from 5 percent to 2 percent until December 31, 2020 to boost the stagnant real estate market, which had been hit doubly hard by COVID-19. The stamp duty from January 1, 2021 until March 31, 2021 was 3 percent.
The Maharashtra government had on March 31 decided not to extend the stamp duty waiver on property registrations and kept the Ready Reckoner Rates unchanged for financial year 2021-22.
The Raheja deal is one of the largest vertical high rise deal in the country but there have been several bungalow deals worth Rs 400 crore and more in the Mumbai market. A few months ago, in one of the biggest property deals in Mumbai, DMart founder Radhakishan Damani and his brother Gopikishan Damani bought a Rs 1,001-crore independent house in Mumbai’s posh Malabar Hill area.
According to local brokers, the registration took place on March 31, the last day of the reduced 3 percent stamp duty on housing units in Maharashtra.
The Damani brothers paid Rs 30 crore in stamp duty (at the rate of 3 percent) for the 5,752 square metre (sq. m) property. The per square foot (sq. ft) rate for this property works out to be around Rs 1.6 lakh per sq. ft, which is unprecedented, brokers said, adding that the built-up area for this property is around 60,000 sq. ft.
One sq. m. is about 10.76 sq. ft.
The Damanis bought the property from Purachand Roychand & Sons, Pareshchand Roychand & Sons, Premchand Roychand & Sons.
The last deal of this magnitude was perhaps the property bought by the owner of biotech major Serum Institute of India’s Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman of the Poonawalla Group, back in 2015. Poonawalla purchased the iconic Lincoln House for Rs 750 crore in the posh Breach Candy area.
The deal was signed between the Poonawalla family and the US Consulate, the then owners of Lincoln House. The Lincoln House, originally known as the Wankaner House, was owned by the Maharaja of Wankaner, a princely state near Rajkot in Gujarat and is spread over 2 acres with a built-up area of 50,000 sq. ft.
In yet another high-profile deal the same year, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla had paid Rs 425 crore for Jatia House in the plush Malabar Hill area. Jatia House has a built-up area of about 25,000 sq. ft.
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