9 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Leasing Office Space in Gurgaon

Most leasing mistakes in Gurgaon start with an assumption nobody checked. A rate quoted for the whole corridor. A metro station described as nearby. A generator summed up in one reassuring sentence. Each one is cheap to check before you sign and expensive to find out after. Here are nine, with the check that catches each.

1. Comparing corridors instead of buildings

A corridor name says little about the rate. In Udyog Vihar, AIHP's buildings run from ₹6,500 a seat a month at AIHP Signature and AIHP 867 to as much as ₹15,000 at AIHP Milestone. For a 50-seat team, that gap is about ₹51 lakh a year, all inside one corridor.

Ask for the rate on the floor you would actually occupy. A corridor-wide figure is fine for a first conversation. Do not put it in a budget.

2. Taking "near the metro" on trust

Metro claims in Gurgaon listings are often loose. Sector 32 used to be described as 800 m from HUDA City Centre. By road it is about 6 km, roughly 15 minutes, which is why AIHP runs a shuttle to the station, now called Millennium City Centre.

Udyog Vihar is walkable to the Cyber City Rapid Metro from some buildings and not others. AIHP Milestone is a 7-minute walk. From AIHP Palms, AIHP 867 and AIHP Tower it is 13 to 15 minutes on foot. From the rest it is a short drive.

Then there are the two Golf Course roads. Golf Course Road has Rapid Metro stations along it. Golf Course Extension Road has none, and the nearest station, Sector 55-56, is 12 to 15 minutes by car. Check which one a listing means. The how-to-reach guide has the routes for every AIHP building.

3. Testing the commute at the wrong hour

Site visits tend to happen mid-afternoon, when roads are easy. Google Maps put the drive from AIHP SCO 31 in Sector 32 to IGI Terminal 3 at about 30 minutes in the afternoon. The evening peak runs longer, so drive the route at the hour your team would actually travel.

Drive the route from your team's main residential areas at the hour they would travel, on a weekday. Weight the result by headcount. Where the leadership lives matters less than where most of the team lives.

4. Budgeting on the headline rent

Quoted rent on a traditional lease leaves out much of the bill. Colliers notes that market rents in Delhi usually exclude service charges such as CAM, and that landlords usually make no contribution to fit-out. Add these before comparing anything:

• CAM, typically ₹15 to ₹40 a sq ft a month on top of rent.
• Fit-out with furniture, which Colliers puts at ₹3,500 to ₹5,000 a sq ft for Class A finishing in Delhi.
• Electricity, internet, housekeeping and security, each billed separately.
• GST at 18% on top of the quote.

For the rent line on its own, Cushman & Wakefield's Q3 2026 Grade A averages are a fair benchmark: ₹150 a sq ft a month in Cyber City and ₹137 on Golf Course Road. Put the other lines next to that figure before you hold it up against a per-seat managed quote. The total cost of occupation guide shows the full sum.

5. Skimming escalation, lock-in and registration

Three clauses decide what the lease costs by year three. The escalation rate compounds every year, so get it as a written percentage. The lock-in fixes how long you keep paying if you need to leave. The exit notice sets how much warning you owe.

Registration is the one people assume someone else handled. A lease longer than 11 months must be registered with the sub-registrar under the Registration Act, 1908. Confirm it has been done and agree in writing who pays the stamp duty. Have a lawyer who handles commercial leases read the draft early, and get every verbal promise into the agreement.

6. Accepting "we have backup" as an answer

Ask for the generator capacity in kVA, and whether it carries the full floor load with the air conditioning on. Some buildings shed AC during an outage and still call it backup. You find out in June.

Internet works the same way. One fibre line from one provider is a single point of failure, however fast it is. Ask for a second connection from a different provider on a separate physical route. Some older Udyog Vihar buildings lack the cabling for it, so check before the fit-out drawings are done.

7. Skipping the occupancy certificate and fire checks

First-time tenants skip this one most often. Occupying a building without a valid occupancy certificate is a legal risk, and it can affect whether your insurance holds. Ask to see the certificate and the fire safety approval. Keep copies with the lease.

8. Not knowing who runs the building

A landlord, a broker and an operator can all show you the same floor. Only one of them answers for the air conditioning after you move in. Ask who signs the agreement, who employs the staff in the building and who you call when something breaks. Three different names means you are dealing with an intermediary.

"Fully furnished" needs the same scrutiny. Done properly it covers eight things: fit-out, furniture, an on-site butler, daily housekeeping, AC and lighting under a running warranty, electricity, internet and facilities management. A quote that lists two or three of them is a different product at a similar price. Ask for the warranty start date.

9. Signing for today's headcount

Moving mid-lease means a new fit-out, a new address on every vendor contract and weeks of a team settling in somewhere else. Before you sign, ask where the team would sit if it doubled.

Floor plates answer that early. AIHP Tower takes 150 seats a floor, AIHP 867 has 195-seat floors and AIHP 390-91 has 210-seat floors. Daas Labs grew from 85 to more than 200 seats across two AIHP buildings in Udyog Vihar, with one operator throughout.

Size meeting rooms for how the team works now. Offices used to plan about one room per 20 to 25 people. The meeting room guide puts hybrid teams closer to one per 12 to 15, because people come in to meet.

Before you sign

Put every shortlisted building through these in one sitting, with the answers in writing:

• The rate for the specific floor, and the written list of what it includes.
• A weekday peak-hour drive from where most of your team lives.
• An all-in monthly cost: rent, CAM, fit-out spread over the term, utilities and GST.
• Escalation, lock-in, exit notice and registration as written clauses.
• Generator kVA, a second internet route, the occupancy certificate and the fire approval.
• Space to grow in the same building or corridor.

AIHP runs managed private offices for teams of 20 seats and up in Udyog Vihar, Sector 32, Golf Course Extension Road and MG Road, with zero CapEx and move-in typically about 60 days from design sign-off. To have a specific building checked against this list, write to leasing@aihp.in.