The three parts of a South Delhi building that spark the most disputes — and why, on a freehold plot, the answer to every one of them lives in a single place: the schedule of your sale deed.
Whoever the registered sale deeds say — nothing else. A builder floor sits on a privately owned freehold plot, so ownership of every part of the building flows from what each deed conveys, not from a statutory default. By prevailing South Delhi practice: exclusive terrace rights are typically sold with the top floor (at a price premium), each floor is allotted specific stilt parking slots in its deed, and the basement is usually conveyed with the ground floor as one unit. Staircase, lift, entrance and services remain common. If your deed’s schedule doesn’t grant it, you don’t own it — however long you’ve used it.
Ask who owns the roof at any South Delhi dinner party and you will collect four confident, conflicting answers. The confusion is understandable: Delhi’s builder floors are not apartments under a housing statute with prescribed common areas — they are four private conveyances carved out of one freehold plot, usually via a collaboration agreement. That makes the paperwork sovereign. This guide sets out the market’s standard allocations, the traps in each, and the exact clauses to read before you buy — or before you fight with your downstairs neighbour.
| Space | Usual allocation | Where disputes come from |
|---|---|---|
| Terrace / roof | Exclusive rights conveyed with the top floor, subject to common access for tanks and services | Older deeds that are silent; buildings where the roof was kept common or retained by the landowner; the mumty and water tanks everyone must reach |
| Stilt parking | Specific slots allotted to each floor in its deed / the collaboration agreement | Deeds that say “one car parking” without marking which; four floors, guests, and drivers negotiating daily |
| Basement | Conveyed with the ground floor as one unit (the 32.5% land-share unit) | Habitability — bye-laws restrict basement use (storage, services, permitted activities), and living-space conversions invite trouble |
| Staircase, lift, entrance | Common to all floors, maintained by shared contribution | Lift installation and repair cost splits in older buildings that never wrote a formula down |
| Front / rear setbacks & lawn | Commonly enjoyed by the ground floor; sometimes expressly conveyed | Deeds silent on the garden a ground floor has “always used” |
| Land under it all | Undivided shares per deed — typically 22.5% per floor, 32.5% for basement+ground | Older buildings with flat 25% splits; mismatches between deeds that together exceed 100% |
Two legal anchors are worth naming. First, because the plot is freehold and privately conveyed, there is no statutory allocation to fall back on — which is why the deed’s schedule and annexed plans decide everything, and why our 21-point checklist makes you read them. Secondly, on parking, the Supreme Court held in Nahalchand Laloochand v. Panchali (2010) — a Maharashtra apartment-law case — that stilt parking is not an independent unit a builder can sell separately from the flats. Delhi builder floors run on a different framework, but the principle travels well: treat parking as appurtenant to a floor, allocated in its deed, never as a freestanding “unit” someone offers to sell you.
Exclusive terrace rights are why the top floor of a new building prices 10–20% above the identical floor below it — the roof is usable private open space in a city that has almost none. But “exclusive” carries two standard limits: common access survives for everyone’s water tanks, solar equipment and services on the roof, and construction on the terrace is governed by bye-laws, not by ownership — a room on the roof needs sanction and available FAR, whatever your deed says. The quieter point buyers miss: terrace rights matter enormously at redevelopment. When the building goes into a collaboration rebuild, the party holding roof rights holds a distinct negotiating position — one more reason the clause is worth real money and precise drafting.
The floor, its land share percentage, the specific parking slots, and any terrace, basement or lawn rights should be described — not implied.
The builder-landowner split is where the allocations were first carved; the deeds should mirror it exactly.
They should total 100%. Overlaps and gaps in older buildings are real and expensive to untangle later.
Walk the stilt and the roof. If the seller “uses” two slots but the deed grants one, the price should reflect the deed.
Confirm what the sanctioned plan permits and how the space is actually used — a bedroom in a storage-sanctioned basement is a liability wearing wallpaper.
“With proportionate rights in common areas and facilities” — and nothing more. A deed that stops there conveys the floor but leaves terrace, parking and lawn to inference and future litigation. In a market where floors trade at ₹5–25 crore, insist that every exclusive right you are paying for is named, described and drawn in the deed. If the seller resists writing it down, you have learned what you needed to know.
In a builder floor, you don’t own what you use. You own what your deed describes.
No. It owns the terrace only if its deed conveys exclusive terrace rights — which is standard in new South Delhi buildings and priced in, but far from universal in older ones. A silent deed leaves the roof effectively common.
If your deed grants exclusive rights, no — but they retain access to common services on the roof (tanks, solar, antennae), and you cannot obstruct that. If the deed is silent, the terrace is contested space and usage history won’t settle it.
Only with sanction and available FAR under the building bye-laws — ownership of terrace rights does not confer construction rights. Unsanctioned rooms invite MCD action and become deductions at resale.
Treat any such offer as a red flag. Parking is allocated as appurtenant to a floor in its deed or the collaboration agreement; the Supreme Court’s reasoning in the Maharashtra context — that stilt parking is not an independently saleable unit — is the sound commercial standard in Delhi too.
Usually the ground-floor owner — basements are typically conveyed with the ground floor as a single unit carrying around 32.5% land share. Check both the deed and the sanctioned use before paying a habitable-space price for storage-sanctioned area.
Basement use is restricted by the building bye-laws to specified purposes, and habitable use beyond what the sanctioned plan permits creates regulatory exposure. Value and use a basement as what its sanction says it is.
All floors, by agreed contribution — commonly equal shares or land-share proportion. New buildings write the formula into the deeds; in older ones, get the owners to record a simple written arrangement before a big-ticket repair forces the question.
The ground floor customarily enjoys the setbacks and garden, but enjoyment is not ownership — unless the deed conveys it. In new buildings the lawn is typically expressly given to the ground floor; in older ones, check.
Your undivided percentage of the plot — typically 22.5% per floor and 32.5% for basement-plus-ground in new buildings, often a flat 25% in older ones. It anchors your circle-rate valuation, your weight in any redevelopment, and ultimately what you own when the building comes down.
They become negotiating positions. Land shares set the baseline economics of the collaboration, and terrace or basement rights are traded into the new building’s allocation — which is why precise deeds today are worth real money at redevelopment tomorrow.
Terrace, parking, basement, land share — we verify what the deed actually conveys against what the seller is selling, on every deal we broker. Clean deals only.
Allocations described reflect prevailing South Delhi market practice and Delhi’s building bye-law framework as of July 2026; individual buildings vary with their deeds and collaboration agreements. The parking principle references Nahalchand Laloochand v. Panchali Co-operative Housing Society (Supreme Court, 2010), decided under Maharashtra law. This is general information, not legal advice.
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