Are you one of the young Apartment Owners, who married after purchasing an Apartment.
In that case you may be wanting to add your spouse as a co-owner of your Apartment.
The advantage of adding a Co-owner is that there is no ambiguity of inheritance in future. The disadvantage is the related costs of this process.
A co-owner is typically owner of half the property, however proportion of ownership can be specified when adding the Co-owner. A Co-Owner can be added using one of the two ways:
A Sale Deed: A portion of the property can be sold by the Owner to the Co-Owner and the Co-Owner can use this sale deed to get registered as the co-owner of the property. The charges that need to be paid is typically the stamp duty which can be 5-12.5% of the market value of the property, the registration charge is about 1%. These charges are different in each state.
A Gift Deed: The ownership of the property can be shared by gifting it to someone. A gift deed needs to be executed on a stamp paper and registered at the registrar’s office. A gift to a relative is not taxable. But if the property is gifted to a non-relative, the value of the house is treated as income and taxed according to the income tax rules. The stamp duty is typically 2% of the value of the property, along with 1% registration charge.
Source: The Economic Times