Understanding Office Leasing Terms in Gurgaon: A Quick Guide

A Gurgaon office lease is a stack of defined terms, and each one moves money between you and the landlord. Most of them show up in the first draft and stay there unless someone pushes back. This guide covers the terms a tenant meets between the first site visit and the registered deed, what each one means in practice, and what happens to it in a managed office.

Before the lease: the documents that come first

Letter of intent (LOI)

The LOI, sometimes called a term sheet, records the commercial deal before lawyers draft the lease. It usually covers area, rent, start date, lock-in, security deposit, escalation and fit-out terms. It is often called non-binding, but its numbers tend to survive into the lease, so negotiate here. If a token amount is paid at signing, read exactly what makes it refundable.

Agreement to lease and lease deed

An agreement to lease commits both sides while conditions are still open, such as a pending occupancy certificate or a fit-out the landlord has promised to finish. The lease deed is the final document. Under India's Registration Act, 1908, a lease longer than 11 months has to be registered with the sub-registrar's office. Ask to see the registration. Don't accept a promise that it will be done.

Stamp duty

Stamp duty is paid when the lease is registered, and the state sets the rate. Haryana's rate depends on the lease term, so check the current slab before you budget for it. One Gurgaon-specific point: for Global Capability Centres, the Haryana GCC Policy 2026 counts stamp duty paid on an office lease as eligible capital expenditure under its CAPEX support. It is not a separate exemption.

Area: what the rent is charged on

Rent is quoted per square foot per month. Which square feet is the question.

Carpet area

The floor you can actually use: workstations, cabins, meeting rooms, pantry. Measure it inside the walls.

Built-up area

Carpet area plus internal walls and columns.

Super built-up area (also called super area, chargeable area or leasable area)

Built-up area plus your share of the building's common parts: lift lobbies, corridors, toilets, the ground-floor lobby, sometimes service areas. Commercial quotes in Gurgaon are commonly made on super area.

Loading

The gap between super area and carpet area, written as a percentage. Two buildings can quote the same rent per square foot and give you very different usable floors because their loading differs. Convert every quote to cost per square foot of carpet area, or better, to cost per usable seat on a test layout. That is the only fair comparison.

Rent and the charges that sit on top of it

Base rent

The headline number, before any service charges. It varies a lot by corridor. Cushman & Wakefield's Q3 2026 Grade A asking rents averaged ₹68 a sq ft a month across the secondary corridors it groups as Gurugram Others, which include Udyog Vihar, against ₹150 in Cyber City and ₹137 on Golf Course Road. The corridor-by-corridor picture is in our micro-market rent comparison.

Common area maintenance (CAM)

CAM pays for running the shared parts of the building: security guards, lift maintenance, lobby cleaning, landscaping, common-area power. Colliers' Delhi occupier guide notes that quoted market rents typically exclude service charges such as electricity, security, housekeeping and CAM. So CAM is a second line on every invoice. On AIHP's 26 October 2026 inventory, for example, the bare-space floor at Silverton Tower on Golf Course Extension Road is priced at ₹65 a sq ft plus ₹22 CAM. Ask whether CAM escalates on its own schedule, and ask for audited CAM statements every year.

Electricity, power backup and parking

Electricity is usually metered and billed separately, at the tenant's cost. Power backup from diesel generators may be charged on a sub-meter or as a proportionate share of the building's running cost. Get the generator capacity in kVA in writing, and how long it covers full-floor load. Get parking bays in an allocation letter.

GST

GST at 18% applies on top of rent and CAM. A quote without it is not the number you will pay.

Money held, and money that grows

Security deposit

A refundable deposit, usually expressed as a number of months of rent. It is negotiated deal by deal. What matters as much as the amount: when it is refunded after you leave, whether it earns interest, and what the landlord may deduct from it. Get all three in writing.

Escalation

A contracted increase in rent, either every year or at fixed intervals. Ask for the rate in writing. A small-looking percentage compounds over a multi-year term, and it can apply to CAM as well as rent.

Lock-in period

The part of the lease term during which you cannot leave without paying rent for the rest of it. The lock-in is not the lease term. A lease can run for years with a much shorter lock-in, after which you can exit on notice. Where a landlord funds part of the fit-out, the lock-in is what that money is underwritten against, so expect to be held to it.

Notice period and break clause

After the lock-in, a break clause lets either side end the lease by serving notice. Check whether the right is mutual. A landlord's break right can cut short a fit-out you paid for.

Fit-out terms

Bare shell, warm shell and plug-and-play

A bare shell is structure and services to the floor, with no ceiling, flooring or cabling. A warm shell adds basic air conditioning and lighting. Plug-and-play arrives furnished and wired. Colliers' Delhi occupier guide notes that landlords typically make no contribution to fit-out, and it puts a Class A fit-out in Delhi, furniture included, at ₹3,500 to ₹5,000 a square foot if you build it yourself. More in our guide to bare shell, warm shell and plug-and-play.

Fit-out period and rent-free period

The time you get to build the office before rent starts. Tie its length to a realistic build programme, and ask whether CAM is also waived during it. If the landlord delays handover, the rent-free clock should move with it.

Reinstatement

A clause requiring you to return the floor to its original condition when you leave, at your cost. Read it before you sign. It is a cost on the way out that nobody budgets on the way in.

Exit, renewal and growth

• Renewal option: the right to extend at a pre-agreed rent or on a stated formula.
• Right of first refusal: first claim on adjacent space in the building before it goes to the market.
• Assignment and sub-letting: whether you can pass the lease to a group company or let part of the floor. Get the landlord's consent terms in writing.

Documents to see before you sign

• A valid occupancy certificate for the building.
• Fire safety compliance for the building and your floor.
• A lawyer's title and encumbrance report on the landlord.
• The registered lease deed, or proof that registration is under way.
• A floor plan certifying carpet area and super area separately.

Occupying a building without a valid occupancy certificate is a real risk, not a formality. It affects insurance validity as well as your legal standing. Our list of things to check before renting office space in Gurgaon covers the rest.

How a managed office bundles these terms

In a managed office, the operator signs the landlord lease, funds the fit-out and runs the building. You sign one agreement and pay one fee per seat per month. Several of the terms above stop being your problem.

• Fit-out and furniture: built by the operator before you move in. AIHP offices need zero CapEx from the tenant.
• CAM, electricity and internet: folded into the per-seat fee, not billed as separate lines.
• Housekeeping and facilities management: part of the fee, with staff in the building.
• Carpet vs super area: replaced by a seat count on an agreed layout.

Some terms stay. You still agree a term, a lock-in, a deposit, an escalation and a notice period, and GST still applies. Read those clauses as closely as in any lease.

At AIHP the per-seat fee covers fit-out, furniture, an on-site butler, daily housekeeping, warranty-backed AC and lighting, electricity, internet and facilities management. Rates ran from ₹6,500 to ₹15,000 a seat a month across the portfolio on the 26 October 2026 inventory, depending on building. Move-in is typically about 60 days from design sign-off, and offices start at 20 seats. What the eight inclusions mean is set out in our fully furnished office cost guide.

For GCCs there is a policy angle too. A managed-office agreement for fitted space is a lease of office premises, so under the Haryana GCC Policy 2026 the per-seat fee counts as lease rent in the OPEX head. Eligible lease rent is 75% of actual rent paid, capped at 6% of the property's valuation by a registered valuer.

A short checklist for the next draft lease

1. Convert the rent to cost per square foot of carpet area, or per usable seat.
2. Add CAM, electricity, power backup, parking and GST to get the all-in monthly figure.
3. Write down the lock-in and the full term separately, and check whether the break right is mutual.
4. Find the escalation rate, and check whether CAM escalates too.
5. Read the reinstatement clause and the deposit refund terms.
6. Confirm registration, the occupancy certificate and fire compliance.

Then compare the result with a per-seat managed quote for the same headcount. For teams of 20 seats or more, send your requirement to leasing@aihp.in and we will price it against the same checklist.