This article is written by Yavanika Shah, Team LawSikho.

With the ever-increasing demand for housing and even business real estate, real estate market is expected to grow by leaps and bounds in India due to sheer population of the country. 

According to statistics, by 2040, the Indian real estate market will grow to Rs 65,000 crore (US$ 9.30 billion) from Rs 12,000 crore (US$ 1.72 billion) in 2019.

With huge market opportunities, come lots of legal work. Contracts, due diligence, litigation.

Even as the real estate market is down at present, work for real estate lawyers have steadily increased. It’s truly a recession proof area of work.

Lawyers, are you reading? 

Here are a few headlines from the last few months:

“Jaypee crisis: SC directs Jaipraksah Associates to return pledged land to Jaypee Infratech”

“Unitech crisis: SC refuses to pass an order on Noida’s plea seeking the return of surplus land”

“Supertech crisis: Home buyers refute claims of 200 flats being handed over”

“Jaypee loses 1,000-hectare land in Greater Noida that has F1 circuit”

With this growing real estate market, the disputes corresponding to real estate have ceased to happen merely in the Consumer Disputes Redressal forums! 

Rather, the Supreme Court is being required to hear the matters relating to real estate every now and then.

These litigations have involvement of big market players as parties to the matter and the amount of money involved goes in crores in most of these above mentioned ‘crisis’.

Interestingly, whether the real estate industry is going through a boom or bust, real estate lawyers are always in high demand. In fact, as the real estate industry went through a down cycle since the last couple of years, the demand for lawyers in the industry has only increased. As the number of cases involving builders has steadily gone up, so has the demand for lawyers.

Most of the work for lawyers have been increasing in the following types of matters: disputes with consumers, disputes between builders and unpaid vendors, registration of new projects under RERA, real estate agreements, various registrations, and building permits, compliance, benami property-related cases, disputes over lease and illegal encroachment of property, housing society disputes, property disputes, and litigation.

If you are interested in becoming a real estate lawyer, keep in mind that there is tremendous scope as an independent lawyer serving real estate clients, especially in litigation!

There are opportunities for a plethora of contract drafting, regulatory and license work as well, which you can very well do as an independent lawyer working on retainership for real estate clients, or even as an in-house counsel. That is the standard model for most smaller builders for hiring lawyers, and it is lucrative practice while larger companies hire in-house counsels as well as need to work with independent lawyers.

From due diligence of property to relatively simple conveyance deeds, lawyers are needed in every stage of real estate transactions. Even Banks hire real estate lawyers as they finance innumerable real estate transactions every day. They need real estate lawyers in every step – from doing due diligence to drawing up mortgage agreements for housing loans!

While a sound working knowledge of the Transfer of Property Act and RERA are extremely important for the field, you should also know the intricacies involved in drafting contracts pertinent to the area. We have listed a few of them here: 

#1 Agreement to Sell

This is the initial document between the buyer and the seller which details the terms and conditions of sale of a property. The terms and conditions include the description of the property, amount of payment, the future date of payment, mode of payment, etc. are included in it. An agreement of sale forms the basis of the execution of a sale deed.

#2 Builder Buyer Agreement

A variant of a sale deed is a builder buyer agreement. It is an immensely important document as it is the legal contract between the builder and the buyer. In case you need a legal recourse, this is the agreement that will help you in Court – therefore it is of utmost importance that one should read and understand their builder- buyer agreement. 

#3 Sale Deed

The sale deed acts as the main document for sale and transfer of ownership of a property. It is executed after the terms and conditions detailed in the agreement of sale have been complied with. This document helps the buyer to acquire the ownership of the property. It is also referred to as the conveyance deed.

#4 Leave and License Agreement

A leave and license agreement is an agreement whereby licensor allows the licensee to temporarily occupy and use a portion of immovable property for business and residential purposes. The license is for a minimum period of 11 months in lieu of a fixed payment of fees. It has to be compulsorily registered before the Sub-Registrar of Assurances in the place where the property is situated.

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#5 Joint Development Agreement

In case of a joint development agreement, the owner provides the land to the developer for an arrangement with the developer. Usually, the arrangement is that the developer will create and construct a real estate project and bear the costs. Various permissions and approvals from authorities are required for this. The owner of the land may get a lump sum amount or a percentage of sales revenue, based on the terms and conditions, or even a portion of the developed property or ownership rights over the same.

As a real estate lawyer, your goal should not only be able to draft agreements for the stakeholders that are full-proof and preclude possibility of any litigations in future but you would also need to learn skills for:

• Advising clients on the applicability of central and state acts and their corresponding rules for projects and/or businesses.
• Advising buyers for a future course of action in case of delay in the possession of the under-construction properties.
• Guide and advise the builders and developers in their project requirements for registration with RERA.
• Advise your clients on various avenues for financing their real estate projects.
• Advising co-operative housing societies about compliance with co-operative societies acts, societies registration acts and other laws as applicable to different states.
• Advise the members of a co-operative society for transactions such as sale /nomination/inheritance of property.
• Advise clients on whether they should avail assured returns, subvention or buy-back schemes and make them aware of the red flags in each one of them.
• Creating legal checklists for clients for buying land or property.
• Analyze search-title and revenue records of a property to meet the legal provisions in the RERA Act.

Want to learn these practical skills? We can help.

To learn more about how you can perform real work for clients in the field of real estate, you can explore the Certificate Course in Real Estate Laws.

You will have an opportunity to attend 1 online live class per week (after work hours – you can watch a recording if you cannot attend the live session and ask your doubts later), perform 2 simulation exercises and receive in-line feedback on your drafts, access online study materials (along with hard copies despatched to your address), doubt clearance within 24 hours and a lot of other benefits that you can find on the course page with details. 

If you are a law student, securing internships will become a super-streamlined process, as you would have acquired the relevant skills, and will even receive our help. 

Still, confused? Hear what our toppers have to say about the course:

The law in real estate space is quite neglected and further such subjects are not covered in law school syllabus. In fact, many legal firms have a real estate department, however, the employees lack good knowledge in this field. Therefore, if one knows the law, sections, regulations and further knows how the process works it would be easy to get a job opportunity in the real estate department of the legal firms. Due diligence was the most crucial part of this course as this generally gets neglected.

Kshitij Wadhwani

1st-year law student of LLB, KC Law college

My family business is Real-estate and construction, and that’s one of the reasons I’m so keenly interested in the subject. So, everything taught is relatable. For instance, my family was unaware of the stringent laws relating to assured return schemes. Any person can benefit, especially with such flexible classes, assignment methods and eager to teach faculties.

Paritosh Patel

Practicing currently at District Sessions, Fast-Track, Family & Consumer Courts, Surat

I am in the real estate field itself but there are certain things which I never heard before joining this course, The practical practices in real estate. I like doing the exercises as they make me learn practical aspects. I feel every person who wants to pursue a career in law should do this course, even the people working in lending institutions should do this as they have in-house lawyers who work on the property and real estate law, even the people working in builder and constructions offices as they require someone to do due diligence. Even consumers should do this course as they go to lawyers for due diligence.

Roshini Bansal

Works with India Bulls

Join Certificate Course in Real Estate Laws and let us prepare you to grab your fair share of opportunities. You even have 30 days money-back guarantee from us to rely on!

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