Who Owns The Land Under A Flat In A Mohali Tower? मोहाली टावर में फ्लैट के नीचे की ज़मीन किसकी है? ਮੋਹਾਲੀ ਦੀ ਇੱਕ ਟਾਵਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਫਲੈਟ ਹੇਠਾਂ ਜ਼ਮੀਨ ਦਾ ਮਾਲਕ ਕੌਣ ਹੈ?

For years, families in Pancham Society in Mohali lived in flats they had paid for and still could not sell. GMADA had allotted the land under their buildings to the cooperative society behind the project. The society fell behind on the instalments it owed for that land, and GMADA took the allotment back. The flats stayed where they were. The ground under them had gone back to the authority.

So who owns the land under a flat in a Mohali tower? Under Punjab's apartment laws, the buyer ends up with the flat itself and an undivided share in the land and the common areas. That share is only as good as the title of the builder or society that sells it, and it becomes the buyer's only when it is conveyed. Until then the land sits with whoever GMADA allotted it to, on GMADA's terms. GMADA did take the land back at Pancham, and it came close at Beverly Golf Avenue, where it cancelled the builder's allotment with flats already built. In Zirakpur, the Opera Garden residents needed a regulator's order to get even the share in the common areas moved to their association.

What happened at Pancham Society

GMADA allotted the site to the Pancham Cooperative House Building Society, and the society built the flats. Members were given possession, but the society did not deposit the instalments of the land cost it owed GMADA. The Hindustan Times reported that members paid an extra amount demanded of them at possession and that the money never reached GMADA. GMADA put out a public notice to resume the land, and a group of members challenged it in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The way out came years later, and it came from GMADA. The authority agreed to recover the society's outstanding dues from the members themselves in proportionate shares and to execute conveyance deeds in their individual names. In February this year GMADA said it would take up sale deeds and other transfer cases in Pancham Society only for owners who had paid and held its no dues certificate. Members who had not paid are still treated as defaulters, and GMADA said it was sending them recovery notices.

What the Pancham families had bought, in practice, was the society's position on the land, with the society's debt attached to it.

What Punjab law says a flat owner holds

The Punjab Apartment Ownership Act gives a person to whom a promoter allots or sells a flat exclusive ownership and possession of that flat. With it comes an undivided interest in the common areas and facilities, in the percentage specified in the conveyance deed. The Act fixes that percentage by comparing the built up area of the flat with the built up area of all the flats in the building.

The Act's definition of common areas includes the land on which the building stands. It says the flat owners own the common areas in common. Neither the promoter nor the residents' association has any ownership right in them, and the association only manages them. The share cannot be separated from the flat. The common areas stay undivided, and no owner can sue to have them partitioned.

So the land under a tower is never a patch of ground with a boundary that one buyer can point to. A flat owner owns the flat and a fraction of everything else, the land included, held jointly with every other owner in the building. The fraction travels with the flat when it is sold or mortgaged and cannot be sold on its own.

The share arrives with the conveyance deed

That ownership does not begin with the booking or with the keys. The Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act sets the order. Once the occupation certificate is obtained, it says, the promoter "shall take all necessary steps to complete his title and convey the exclusive ownership of the apartment" along with "the undivided interest in the common areas and facilities appurtenant to such apartment". The conveyance deed is due within a fixed period of giving possession. If the promoter fails to do so without sufficient cause, the same Act lets the person in possession apply to the competent authority for a certificate, so the deed can be registered without the promoter's signature.

The Apartment Ownership Act says the same thing from the other side. Where the land is not leasehold, it is on the execution of the conveyance deed that the title of the flat and the share in the common areas are treated as passing to the owner. The central RERA Act likewise requires the promoter to execute a registered conveyance deed in favour of the allottee, and to pass the undivided proportionate title in the common areas to the association of allottees.

The words that matter are "complete his title". The law expects the seller to put its own title to the land in order before it can pass a share of that land to anyone. At Pancham, GMADA executed conveyance deeds only once the dues on the land were paid, so a society still owing GMADA for the site had no complete title to pass. Keys and years of residence did not change that.

Until then, the land answers to GMADA

GMADA sells sites in its sectors under the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act. Its resumption section says that where a transferee defaults on the price or on any instalment, the Estate Officer may first impose a penalty after notice. If the money is still not paid, or another condition of the transfer is broken, the Estate Officer may issue a show cause notice proposing to resume the land or building and forfeit part of the money paid. After a hearing, the Estate Officer may order resumption. An appeal lies to GMADA's Chief Administrator, and a revision after that to the state government.

The section speaks of the transferee. For a tower site that means the builder or society to which GMADA sold or allotted the land. A notice of resumption is addressed to them, and the land it covers is the land under every flat in the project.

Beverly Golf Avenue came close

Beverly Golf Avenue, the group housing project beside the Mohali golf range, had its allotment cancelled and restored within weeks. Its builder, MB Infra Build, had bought the site at auction, deposited part of the bid, received its allotment letter and then failed to pay the balance on schedule. By then it had already built flats on the site. GMADA cancelled the allotment, under the planning and development Act according to its officials, and put out a circular cautioning the public against any purchase or transaction in the project, saying it would not be responsible for such dealings. The Tribune reported that the default put the future of hundreds of flat owners in jeopardy.

The builder appealed to GMADA's appellate authority. Within a month, after it paid a part of the outstanding amount, GMADA withdrew the cancellation notice. The builder's side said a GMADA board outside the site warning the public against buying had been removed. The buyers had not caused the cancellation, and the withdrawal followed a payment by the builder.

The residents' later dispute over the RERA safeguards that applied once the occupancy certificate came is covered in our report on Beverly Golf Avenue.

Opera Garden shows the common areas need a formal handover

Opera Garden is at Kishanpura in Dhakoli, in Zirakpur, outside Mohali city though in the same district. The Opera Residents Association took the promoters to RERA Punjab over unfinished amenities and common areas that had not been handed over. In an order reported in August, RERA found that the promoters had obtained completion and occupancy certificates for only some of the towers and not for the whole project.

RERA directed the promoters to "transfer undivided proportionate rights in common areas and relevant documents" to the recognised residents' association. Two rival associations claimed to speak for the residents, so RERA sent both to the Sub Divisional Magistrate to establish which one is the recognised body. Until maintenance is lawfully handed over, the promoters have to keep essential services running. Allottees remain liable for maintenance charges under their agreements. That duty to keep paying maintenance is the subject of an earlier RERA order we covered.

Punjab's apartment law and the central RERA Act phrase the common area share differently. The state law says the owners hold it in common and the association only manages it. The RERA Act speaks of passing the undivided proportionate title in the common areas to the association. Either way, the share does not reach the residents' side until the promoter transfers it. At Opera Garden it took a complaint and an order to set that transfer going.

So who owns the land under the flat

Once the conveyance deed is executed, the flat owners do, together, each in the share the deed records, with nobody owning a marked piece of it. Before that, the land is held by the builder or society GMADA allotted it to, on the conditions of that allotment, payment of the price among them. The buyer holds an agreement and the promise of a share, and often possession too.

The law puts duties on the promoter around that gap. The Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act requires the promoter to disclose the nature of its title to the land and any encumbrance on it. The RERA Act makes the promoter compensate allottees for loss caused by a defect in the title to the project land. Both are claims against the promoter. What lifted GMADA's action in the two Mohali cases was money paid to GMADA: a part payment by the builder at Beverly Golf Avenue, and at Pancham, in the end, the flat owners' own shares of the society's dues.

What the record establishes

The Punjab statutes give a flat owner the flat and an undivided share in the land and common areas, and they tie that share to the conveyance deed. Until the deed, the land answers to GMADA through whoever it allotted the site to. GMADA's Act lets it resume land for unpaid dues. The two Mohali cases come at that rule from opposite ends. At Pancham the resumption went through with families already in their flats, and at Beverly Golf Avenue a cancellation was lifted after the builder paid part of what it owed. The Zirakpur case adds that the common area share can sit with a promoter until a regulator orders it across.

Related reading

- The occupancy certificate came, then RERA allegedly removed the safeguards
- Where a buyer's money sits between paying and possession
- Housing societies around Mohali and who approves them
- Plot or flat in Mohali, weighed for a buyer

Sources: The sources we use are listed on our Editorial Sources page.

This explains what the reported cases and the Punjab and central statutes say about the land under group housing in and around Mohali, and does not give legal advice. The position of any single flat turns on its own allotment and papers.