Buying a resale flat in Noida or Greater Noida: transfer charges and why the authority must approve

Rules and rates as of 22 October 2026.

You are buying a lease, not land

Almost every flat in Noida and Greater Noida sits on land that the development authority still owns. The New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (Noida Authority) and the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) were set up under the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Area Development Act, 1976. Section 7 of that Act lets an authority "sell, lease or otherwise transfer" its land "on such terms and conditions as it may" impose, and section 14 lets its Chief Executive Officer resume a site, and forfeit money paid, for non-payment or for "breach of any condition of such transfer".

In practice the authority leases land to a builder, and the builder passes each flat to a buyer under a sub-lease. GNIDA's own housing brochures, for example, give the lease as "90 years from the date of execution of Lease Deed". So what changes hands on a resale is the remaining lease, and the authority, as lessor, has a say in who holds it.

Why the authority must sign off on a resale

Because the authority is the lessor, a seller cannot simply register a sale deed and walk away. The buyer applies to the authority, pays its transfer charge, and receives a Transfer Memorandum. Only then is the transfer deed executed and registered.

GNIDA's terms for its 2023 flat scheme (BHS-17/LOF-04) show how tightly this is drawn:

• A flat can be transferred only after the lease deed has been executed in the seller's name (clause 11.1).
• The transfer deed must be executed within 90 days of the Transfer Memorandum, which is valid for 90 days. Miss it and you pay an extension charge; let the grace period lapse and you must apply afresh and pay transfer charges again (clauses 11.14 and 11.15).
• Transfer charges, once deposited, are not refunded even if the deal falls through (clause 10.9 of GNIDA's BHS-18 brochure carries the same rule).
• Any lien, claim or court order that later surfaces is "the sole liability of transferee(s)" (clause 11.13). The authority's approval is not a title check on your behalf.
• A mortgage needs "the previous consent of the lessor", with a ₹1,000 mortgage permission fee and ₹5,000 for collateral security (clause 10 and the data sheet).

What GNIDA's published charges look like

For multi-storey flats in that scheme, clause 11.8 lists transfer charges "as per present policy" by size. The brochure says "Sqm" without saying whether it means carpet, covered or super area, and it does not say whether each rate applies to the whole flat or only to the slice of area within that band. The table below shows both readings.

Flat size	Rate in brochure	Whole area at one rate	Band by band
45 sq m	₹250 per sq m (up to 50)	₹11,250	₹11,250
75 sq m	₹500 per sq m (51 to 100)	₹37,500	₹25,000
110 sq m	₹600 per sq m (101 and above)	₹66,000	₹43,500

Two exceptions in the same clause matter to many families. A transfer to parents, grandparents, grandchildren, children or spouse is "allowed without transfer charges" (clause 11.12). And when a bank sells a flat under the SARFAESI Act, "transfer charges at the rate of 10% of the sale value will be levied" (clause 11.16).

Two cautions. First, these are the terms of flats GNIDA itself built and sold. A flat in a private builder's group housing society is governed by the builder's lease with the authority and the authority's transfer policy for group housing, which can use a different basis. Second, both GNIDA brochures say elsewhere that transfer charges apply "as per prevailing policy", so the current figure is whatever the authority's latest order says on the day you apply.

Noida Authority publishes its own schedule. We could not open it: Noida Authority's website refused our automated reader, and so did GNIDA's transfer-forms page. Property portals report board decisions in 2021 that cut resale transfer charges in both cities, but we have not read those orders and do not quote their rates here. Ask the authority's property department for the current order in writing.

Worked example: the same flat, two ways in

Take a 75 sq m flat in a GNIDA scheme on the terms above. These figures are illustrative.

Ordinary resale at ₹45 lakh. Transfer charge under the whole-area reading = 75 × ₹500 = ₹37,500. Under the band-by-band reading = (50 × ₹250) + (25 × ₹500) = ₹12,500 + ₹12,500 = ₹25,000.

Bank auction at ₹40 lakh. Transfer charge = 10% × ₹40,00,000 = ₹4,00,000.

The auction flat is ₹5 lakh cheaper on paper, but the authority's charge is ₹3,62,500 to ₹3,75,000 higher, which eats most of that gap before you count anything else. Stamp duty and registration fee come on top in both cases and are charged by the state's stamps and registration department, not the authority; we have not computed them here because we could not read the state's current rate schedule.

Lease rent: the charge that keeps running

The lease also carries rent to the authority. Under GNIDA's 2023 terms (clause 4) the allottee pays either a lump sum of 10% of the premium before the lease deed, or 1% of the premium every year in advance, and after ten years the lease rent is "automatically increased @50%", with the enhancement repeating every ten years.

On an illustrative premium of ₹30 lakh, that is ₹3,00,000 once, or ₹30,000 a year for the first ten years and ₹45,000 a year for the next ten (₹7,50,000 over twenty years). When you buy resale, ask the seller for the receipt showing which option was taken and that nothing is outstanding. Unpaid lease rent is a dues item the authority can hold against the flat.

The sub-lease deed problem

A transfer can only be approved for a flat whose lease paperwork exists. In many Noida and Greater Noida projects it does not. The Centre's expert committee on stalled legacy projects (the Amitabh Kant committee, 2023) found registration and sub-lease deeds delayed "despite project completion" because builders had defaulted on dues to the authorities, and recommended that sub-leases "should not be contingent on the recovery of dues from the builders". Its meeting minutes record "around 40,000 homebuyers in Greater NOIDA" without a sub-lease deed. Our separate explainer covers the Uttar Pradesh relief package that followed.

If the flat you are being offered has no registered sub-lease deed in the seller's name, the authority's transfer route is not yet open to you. What you would be buying is the seller's contractual right against the builder, which is a different and weaker thing.

Before you pay a token

• Get a certified copy of the registered sub-lease or lease deed in the seller's name.
• Ask the authority, in writing, for the current transfer charge order for that category of flat, and the area basis it uses.
• Get the authority's no-dues position on lease rent and any other charges, and the society's no-dues on maintenance.
• If the flat is mortgaged, ask for the lender's closure letter and the authority's mortgage permission that it replaces.
• Budget for the 90-day window between the Transfer Memorandum and registration, and have your loan sanction ready before you apply.
• Have a property lawyer check the chain from the authority's lease down to the seller.