Sonam Kapoor got hooked to a 7000 sqft duplex for 30 crore!

The media is buzzing with reports of Bollywoodeans looking for their own homes sans their parents. After Priyanka chopra, Alia Bhatt, Shraddha Kapoor, we’ve learned that fashion diva Sonam Kapoor has moved into a plush duplex in Signature Island located in Bandra-Kurla complex.

Interestingly, Ms. Kapoor ditched the Bollywood capital Juhu and chose a business hub for her pad. Sonam’s building is populated with the likes of industrialist Gautam Adani, Deutsche Bank co-chief executive officer of Asia/Pacific, Gunit Chadha, chairman of JM Financial Nimesh Kampani, former Citigroup head Vikram Pandit, Harsh Mariwala of Marico, Kishore Lulla of Eros International and Ashok Wadhwa of Ambit Holdings, Jalaj Dani of Asian Paints, Pramit Jhaveri, CEO of Citi India, and Mickey Doshi, MD and country head at Credit Suisse.

The actress was initially hunting for a bungalow, but when she came across this project, she thought of booking a duplex. The house is a sprawling 7000 sq ft space that runs across the 3rd and 4th floor of the building. And apparently, the duplex has cost Sonam a whopping Rs. 30 crore!

The house overlooks some of the top hotels in the neighborhood, and the building’s proximity to American Consulate also makes it paparazzi proof. The building also sports a mini-theatre, where Sonam could host movie screenings.

The Khoobsurat girl’s abode has been designed by her maternal aunt Kavita Singh who is an interiors expert. The attraction of Sonam’s house is a lavish bathroom with a Jacuzzi attached and also a walk in wardrobe, which suits perfectly for the fashionista of Bollywood!

Under construction flat? Service Tax levy may be exempted

A High Court ruling is all set to bring cheers to thousands of home buyers who have booked under-construction properties before 2012. In a landmark judgement on a wake petition filed by two buyers who had purchased flats from Sethi Buildwell Pvt. Ltd in the Max Royal group housing project in Noida’s Sector 76, The HC has ruled that builders or developers cannot charge service tax from home buyers for under-construction property. However, they can charge extra under ‘Preferential Location Charges (PLC).

The judgment will be applicable to houses purchased before July 1, 2012. In addition, HC has also said that if service tax has already been collected by the developer, then the revenue department shall refund the same to buyers with 6% rate of interest.

“Mom will design my new home,” says Varun Dhawan

After actors like Alia bhatt, Taapsi Pannu, Shraddha Kapoor ventured out into the real estate market to buy their own properties in the maximum city, it is now the turn of the Badlapur boy to move out of his parents’ home.

Varun Dhawan has recently bought a four-and-a-half BHK flat in the same building where he is currently staying with his parents, David and Karuna Dhawan in Juhu area of Mumbai.

“I have been wanting to buy my own apartment since a while now, but not by borrowing money from my father,” he says. Varun’s bachelor pad is on the first floor of this building. “It is always nice to stay closer to your parents,” the 29-year old reveals.

While Varun’s co-star Alia Bhatt is getting her Mumbai home designed by interior designer Richa, for Dhawan kid, mommy knows best! “My mom will design the interiors of my new home,” he chuckles.

Varun is expected to move into his own den by December this year.

You can also reach him on :

Facebook :  www.facebook.com/VarunDhawan.co

Twitter : twitter.com/varun_dvn

Some ideas to ensure you get the maintenance dues

Collecting maintenance dues is a real nightmare. Because no matter how much you try, some people just forget it every month, and some simply despise the idea of paying their dues.

Firstly, let us accept that this ain’t a utopian world where people are prompt and love to pay off their dues. But, the question is, how do you remind them to pay for the community services they avail, and what measures do you take if they refuse to loosen their wallets?

Every month, each one of us clears off payments for a list of utilities like electricity, telephone, credit card and so on. One way to remind people to pay maintenance bills is to send them sms or email alerts in advance.

If a resident fails to pay his maintenance bill surpassing the due date also, Even after reminders, you may give a written notice of 12 days extra to make the payment, and then a grace period of 3 days.

If the resident is a willful defaulter, you can pass a resolution in the committee meeting of the society and send a legal notice in consultation with an advocate. As a penalty, an interest of 12% per annum may be charged on the default amount from the due date to the payment date.

The committee may decide to withdraw facilities like tanker-water, or generator power supplied during a power-cut to penalize the defaulter and re-connection should be permitted only upon clearance of outstanding payments.   ◾

Remember, these are only ideas that can be explored by residential societies to push people for on time payment of maintenance bills and not bylaws. It is advisable to check with a legal expert before implementation of these ideas.

Nonetheless, when you set your society’s by-laws, make sure you add a clause on measures that would be taken in case a resident consistently defaults on paying the maintenance that he is liable to pay.

Private investors competing for commercial realty in India

India’s services-led economy,  which is the fastest growing in the world, has created a steady market for income-generating commercial real estate, giving private investors a chance to list these assets through real estate investment trusts (REITs). These trusts are listed entities holding income-generating real estate assets from which earnings are distributed to shareholders.

To help real estate and infrastructure developers list their rent-yielding assets as well as provide large and small stock market investors with an inflation-indexed product, the Stock Exchange Board of India, Sebi also came out with REIT guidelines two years ago. In order To further enhance the optimism in the commercial real estate market, The Union government has also recently given tax clarity in setting up REITs, as sought by global investors.

Bulge-bracket investors like Blackstone, Qatar Investment Authority, Goldman Sachs and GIC of Singapore are some of the institutional investors who have been increasing the volume of their Indian office space portfolio in recent years.

Brookfield Asset Management, one of the world’s largest property and infrastructure investors, is just a few days away from owning the commercial real estate assets of Hiranandani Developers in Powai near Mumbai for approximately Rs 6,700 crore). In the transaction, the company will buy the 4.5 million-sq-ft business park, making it the single largest commercial property acquisition in the country.

This deal would outdo Qatar-backed RMZ Corp’s recent acquisition of Equinox Business Park from Essar for Rs 2,400 crore in Bandra-Kurla Complex as the largest MA in the country’s commercial real estate market. Brookfield’s acquisition of the AIM-listed Unitech Corporate Parks for over Rs 2,000 crore in 2014 was another big transaction. The Hiranandani deal would see Brookfield competing with Blackstone Group, the most aggressive buyer of Indian office properties until now, for a bigger share of the 400 million sqft grade-An office space in India.

After acquiring Unitech Corporate Parks and Gammon’s road and power assets, Brookfield pipped other potential suitors (Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board and Blackstone) with an aggressive offer to chase down its third Indian buyout deal with the Hiranandani transaction.

With Unitech Corporate Parks 11million sq ft of leased office space and a potential to develop 6 million sq ft more, The Hiranandani deal will take Brookfield’s portfolio to over 21 million sqft. Blackstone, through joint ventures and fully owned subsidiaries, already has a 50 million sqft portfolio of office space in the country.

Indiabulls to develop plot in Worli, Mumbai

Tapir Realty Developers, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Indiabulls Real Estate (IBREL), has entered into a joint development agreement with Oricon Properties, a subsidiary of Oricon Enterprises, for development of 7,810 sq metres plot located on E-Moses Road at Worli in Mumbai, the company said in a statement filed on the BSE.

IBREL, which has presence in Mumbai, NCR and Chennai, is developing over 10 projects in India with total saleable area of over 30 million sq ft.

The company has reported consolidated net profit of Rs 305.04 crore; while the company’s total income stood at Rs 2,785.84 crore for the financial year ended 2016.

Coming soon- online module for property valuations

The department of registration and stamps is working on an online module for the valuation of property by the people themselves eliminating the dependency on middlemen. The process of property valuations online in the public domain will ensure transparency and plug leakages in the collection of stamp duty.

Valuation is the process of ascertaining the true market value of a property for arriving at the stamp duty to be paid for registration. This includes documents where stamp duty is paid on the market value of the document like in sale and purchase, conveyance, development agreements and lease.

“We want to ensure that the valuation of all documents is done online, up from the present system where just around half of the documents are covered. This would reduce discretion and corruption while ensuring transparency,” said Dr Ramaswami N, inspector general of Registration and Controller of Stamps.

“Around 60-70% of the valuation guidelines have been put up online. Development of the remaining modules is in progress. We will soon add more features and integrate the annual schedule of rates (ASR) or ready reckoner with the valuation calculation module,” he added.

“There are some complicated documents and their valuation cannot be done online due to the limitations of the present system. Some formula have not been integrated in the online module. Therefore, the valuation for such documents will be done manually and the explanation of calculations will have to be attached with the papers to be registered,” a senior official from the department said.

Hiranandani’s Powai retail space to be acquired for $1 billion

Developed over a decade, the Hiranandani Group, a partnership between brothers Niranjan and Surendra Hiranandani, which owns 4.5 million square feet of office and retail space in Powai, a suburb of Mumbai, will soon be acquired by Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management. This is said to be Mumbai’s largest property transaction in the commercial space which is worth $1 billion or Rs. 6700 crore.

“The process to restructure Hiranandani brothers’ partnership firm is already at an advanced stage and this will clear the way for the transaction. The deal is scheduled to conclude very soon,” a source familiar with the development said.

The developer group which holds the Powai assets is presently a corporate entity and this move may be a precursor to either listing of a Real Estate Investment Trust that would hold the office assets or stake sale.

Hiranandani’s Powai offices are fully leased to giants like Tata Consultancy Services, Nomura Group and Deloitte Consulting India.

Brookfield Asset Management is a global alternative asset manager which has been very active in India off late. The company acquired 100% stake in four special economic zones owned by Unitech Corporate Parks (UCP) and 60% stake in its two other assets in the country for Rs 3,500 crore in 2014.

Dancer Lauren buys her own home in Mumbai!

Mumbai, the city of dreams, is rightly called Mayanagri. It might be easier to fulfill most of your dreams here but for owning a house. Countless people have reveries of living here but buying a property here sure burns a huge hole in your pockets.

Nonetheless, some are lucky to own an apartment here while many others struggle to turn their dream into reality. And, B-town dancer Lauren Gottlieb is just one of them.

The mind-blowing dancer who has made appearances in some reality shows and a few Bollywood movies has finally got the keys to her new home in Mumbai. After three long years of struggle & adversities, the US beauty feels that this is her home away from home. “It is extremely difficult to get a property of your choice in Mumbai especially if you are a foreigner, single, dancer and linked to bollywood. And I’m all of these. I simply wish to thank god and my family for my accomplishment,” the emotional Lauren wrote on Instagram.

You can also reach her on :

Facebook : www.facebook.com/LaurenGottliebofficiall

Instagram : www.instagram.com/laurengottlieb

Searching for properties online? Beware of fraudsters!

In today’s internet age where tasks from buying veggies to real estate happen online, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain the authenticity of faceless entities. While the financial loss arising from expenditure on things like fake apparel or vegetables might not harm you as much, making a payment for booking an apartment certainly would.

The Pune Police Crime Branch has arrested a man who allegedly conned many people to the tune of lakhs of rupees by posting fake advertisements about selling homes on property websites. “He and his co-conspirators posted advertisements of properties in the name of Allmax Realty Acres Private Limited and Wellington Homezone India Private Limited on popular websites like Common Floor and Magicbricks,” the police said.

The suspect has been identified as Suraj Rakesh Choube alias Swaroop Sharma alias Raj Shukla. He was wanted in cases registered with the Vimantal and Lashkar police stations in Pune as well as Nalasopara police station in Mumbai.

Suraj purportedly attracted customers who were looking for apartments online. After the customers contacted him, he took them to show some properties. If someone got interested in a deal, He prepared fake documents and also took booking amounts. However, he did not complete the deal and fled with the money.

Investigations in the matter and efforts to nab Suraj’s accomplices are on by a team of Economic Offences Wing of Pune Police’s Crime Branch led by Inspector Vasant Kunvar.