Preleased Property in Ahmedabad: How to Judge the Tenant, the Lease and the Real Yield

Preleased property in Ahmedabad means buying a shop, office, showroom or warehouse that already has a tenant paying rent. You are buying an income stream, and it is only as safe as three things: who the tenant is, how many years of lock in remain, and what the property earns after costs on the full price you pay. Nobody publishes reliable preleased yields for Ahmedabad, so ignore the percentages on listing sites and work the number out yourself. The sections below take the three tests in turn, with the numbers worked through.

What is preleased property, and how is it different from an assured return deal?

In a true preleased deal the lease already exists. A tenant has signed, moved in, fitted out the space and is paying rent, and you take over the landlord’s position when you buy.

That is different from a developer offering an “assured rental” on a unit still under construction. There, the developer promises to pay you, or promises to find a tenant, and the promise is only as good as the developer’s balance sheet. If a project is not finished and nobody occupies the space, it is not preleased, whatever the brochure says.

For investors who want income rather than a bet on prices, we think preleased commercial space is the better tool. Our piece on rental yield vs appreciation shows why a residential flat rarely does that job.

How do you calculate ROI on a preleased property?

Start with the full cost, not the price. Stamp duty in Gujarat is 4.9% on a sale deed under the Gujarat Stamp Act, with no separate commercial rate, plus a 1% registration fee. On a ₹1.5 Cr office:

Now the rent. Assume the tenant pays ₹90,000 a month, pays the society maintenance itself, and you pay property tax of ₹30,000 and insurance of ₹10,000 a year.

The last row is the one sellers never show you. If the tenant leaves at the end of the lock in and the space takes six months to relet, that year’s return halves.

The tenant’s security deposit, often several months’ rent, has to be handed over by the seller or adjusted in the price, because you will owe it back when the tenant leaves. Do not treat it as a discount.

Which lease terms make a preleased deal worth buying?

The lease is the asset. Read it before you read the brochure, and read the registered copy, not a summary.

These ranges are common market practice, as published law firm guides describe. No law fixes them, so every lease is different.

Check that the lease is registered. A lease for more than one year must be registered, as the IGR Gujarat FAQ confirms, and an unregistered long lease may be hard to rely on if the tenant disputes it. For a lease of five to fifteen years, Gujarat stamp duty is 2% of the average annual rent, with a minimum of ₹10,000. For a nine year lease on our example, with rent rising 15% every three years, the average annual rent works out to ₹12,50,100:

Section 3A of the Stamp Act adds an additional duty on leases, so confirm the final figure on the GARVI calculator before the document is printed.

How do you judge the tenant?

A ₹90,000 rent from a bank on a nine year lease is worth far more than the same rent from a new business on a three year lease. When you assess a tenant, ask:

• Is it a listed company, a bank, a national brand or a local business? Ask for the last two years of accounts if it is private.
• How long has it been in this space, and has it paid on time? Ask the seller for rent receipts and bank statements, not a declaration.
• Has it spent heavily on fitting out the space? A tenant that has invested in its interiors has more reason to stay.
• Is the tenant a flexible workspace operator? Flex operators took 45% of Ahmedabad’s office leasing in H1 2026. They can be good tenants, but their income depends on their own members renewing, so read their exit clauses closely.

Check the rent against the market too. If a deal’s rent is far above what similar space nearby fetches, the tenant may not renew at that rent, and with more than a third of the city’s office space empty, a replacement tenant is unlikely to pay it. Ask us what comparable space in the same building is leasing for.

“Pre leased bank property” is a common search here, and banks are attractive tenants because they pay reliably. They can also close or merge branches, so make sure the lock in, and not just the bank’s name, carries the deal.

What GST and TDS apply to commercial rent?

GST on renting commercial property is 18% (9% central plus 9% state under heading 9972 in the GST Council’s rate list). A registered landlord charges it to the tenant.

Since 10 October 2024, when an unregistered landlord rents commercial space to a registered tenant, the tenant pays the GST under reverse charge, per Notification 09/2024. From 16 January 2025, tenants under the composition scheme are excluded, per Notification 07/2025. Whether you need GST registration as the landlord depends on your total turnover, so ask your CA before the first invoice.

TDS is deducted by the tenant before paying you. Under section 393(1) of the Income Tax Act, 2025, which replaced the 1961 Act from 1 April 2026:

On our example, a company tenant would deduct ₹9,000 a month. That money is a credit against your tax, not a loss, but only if it is deposited and shows against your PAN, so check it every quarter.

If the office is still under construction when you buy, GST also applies on the purchase: 12% with input tax credit in a commercial project, or 5% without credit for commercial units inside a residential project, according to the GST Council FAQ on real estate.

Where do preleased deals make sense in Ahmedabad?

For offices, most demand sits in the western business district: Bodakdev, Prahlad Nagar, Satellite, SG Highway and Thaltej, with ISKCON and Bopal Ambli Road also active. That is where we would expect a vacated office to relet fastest. Look at offices for sale in Ahmedabad and along Sindhu Bhavan Road, and our comparison of office rent across Ahmedabad’s corridors.

For shops, frontage and footfall matter more than the building itself. For warehouses, the Aslali and Changodar belts carry most of the leasing; see warehouses in Aslali.

One practical point for buyers of preleased space: when the tenant is a national company, we can ask other CIRIL members, the commercial specialists we network with in 45+ cities, how that occupier has renewed or exited elsewhere. That is worth knowing before you rely on its renewal here.

If you have a preleased offer in hand, send us the lease, the rent receipts and the asking price through our consultation form. We will work out the net yield on the full cost and tell you plainly whether the lease supports the price.