Most Bengaluru businesses pick between three things once a deal is agreed: a template pulled off the internet, a purchase order with an email trail behind it, or a document drafted for that particular deal. The template is cheapest until it is tested. A purchase order is honest work for a repeat supply at a settled price, and stops being enough once tooling, credit or confidential drawings are involved. A drafted agreement wins wherever money moves in stages, wherever something is shared that you would not want copied, and wherever the paper will be stamped in Karnataka and may later be produced before a court. That last part is what makes this a local job rather than a download.
Does your Bengaluru deal actually need a drafted agreement?
Scope first, because plenty of transactions do not need one. A single delivery against a quotation, paid on receipt, is covered by your invoice terms.
Ask for a drafted agreement when any of these is true:
- Payment is staged, retained or on credit, so one side is exposed between delivery and settlement.
- Drawings, tooling, source code, formulations or a customer list change hands.
- You are occupying premises you do not own, or letting out premises you do.
- The counterparty sits in another state and somebody has to say which courts hear a dispute.
There is a middle option people forget. An agreement that does not relate to a monetary transaction, and cannot be valued in money, is charged at just ₹50 under Article 5(b) of the Karnataka Stamp Act. A confidentiality undertaking can be executed properly for very little, so there is no reason to leave one in a WhatsApp thread.
What has to be ready before the drafting starts?
The checklist below is what a Bengaluru drafting brief has to answer before anyone writes a word. Most delays are not legal ones. They are a missing figure or an unnamed signatory.
| Clause | What it has to settle | Why it matters here |
|---|---|---|
| Parties and execution | Legal names, who signs, and the date and place of signature | Duty is charged on execution, so the date on the page matters |
| Consideration | The amount, the trigger for each payment, and the tax treatment | It decides which Schedule article the instrument falls under |
| Term and renewal | Start date, length, renewal mechanism and notice to exit | A yearly rent or a year to year term makes a lease compulsorily registrable |
| Deposit and security | Amount held, adjustment against rent, refund timing | On a lease the deposit sits inside the duty base, not outside it |
| Confidentiality and IP | Who owns drawings, tooling, data and improvements | An assignment of those rights carries its own charge in the Schedule |
| Governing law and forum | The law that applies and the courts that hear a dispute | A Bengaluru jurisdiction clause is only worth having if the forum is right |
Two things go missing most often: the exact deposit figure, and the name of the person authorised to sign for a company. Bring the board resolution or partnership authority with the brief.
How does the drafting actually run, from brief to signature?
- Brief. We take the commercial terms, the parties and your deadline, then tell you which instrument the deal needs.
- Duty and forum check. Before a word is drafted we settle which Schedule article applies and whether registration is triggered.
- First draft. A drafting lawyer writes it from your brief, not from a form, and marks every clause where you have a commercial choice.
- Your review. You mark changes, we redraft, and we explain any clause you would rather not carry.
- Execution. You get the duty figure, the method the department is currently accepting, and the signing order.
None of that needs you at a counter. Duty calculation, fee payment and slot booking are done online, and the parties attend only where the document has to be registered.
Which Karnataka office ends up holding the document?
For most commercial contracts, none of them. A supply, service or confidentiality agreement is stamped and kept by the parties; there is no filing counter for it. Registration enters the picture with property.
A lease from year to year, for a term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent, is compulsorily registrable under section 17(1)(d) of the Registration Act 1908. Section 23 allows four months from execution to present it. That takes you to the jurisdictional sub registrar office, and in Bengaluru the office follows the property rather than your head office. The Department of Stamps and Registration runs 260 sub registrar offices across the state, 42 of them under the five District Registrar offices in Bengaluru Urban. A workshop in Peenya registers at Peenya. Premises on the Whitefield corridor go to Varthuru or Mahadevpura, and a Koramangala office falls under Bhommanahalli.
Kaveri 2.0 is where that runs. A draft without signatures can go up for approval. Once approval comes through, four things freeze: who the executants are, the schedule of property, what kind of document it is, and the consideration figure. The sub registrar approves or returns the application with remarks within 24 hours. Budget ₹100 for each consenting witness. Guidance value, published under section 45B, does not reach an ordinary rent document.
Forum is the other thing this stage decides. The High Court sits at Bengaluru, so a Bengaluru jurisdiction clause names a real forum, not a convenience. Under the Commercial Courts Act the specified value begins at a statutory floor of three lakh rupees. Any state is free to fix a higher figure, so we check where Karnataka currently stands before a forum clause is finalised. In practice a Bengaluru commercial suit starts in a commercial court at the district level.
What does an agreement cost in Bengaluru, and when does it come round again?
Drafting starts at ₹999 and standard documents come back in 3 to 5 days. Stamp duty is separate, because it is a state levy that moves with the instrument:
- A business agreement with no article of its own is ₹500 under Article 5(j), substituted by Karnataka Act 04 of 2024 with effect from 3 February 2024.
- A lease is charged on the total of average annual rent, premium, fine and money advanced, and the Explanation puts the security deposit inside that base. One to ten years is 1 percent.
- A licence of immovable property has its own head, Article 32-A, carrying minimum amounts that the lease article does not.
- An assignment of intellectual property rights runs at one rupee for every ₹1,000 of consideration, with a floor of ₹200.
- Where the document is registered, the registration fee has been 2 percent since 31 August 2025.
Section 30 settles who pays: the lessee on a lease, the licensee on a licence, the executant on an ordinary agreement, the assignee on an assignment, and the firm on a partnership deed. The national position on formation, validity and enforceability sits in our complete agreement drafting guide for India.
It comes round again. Stamp before or at execution, because section 17 is written that way and stamping afterwards is not a cure. Section 34 keeps an insufficiently stamped instrument out of evidence, and out of being acted upon, until the deficiency and a penalty of ten times the shortfall are paid. An eleven month term is a drafting convention rather than a statutory line, so diary the renewal and expect the fresh document to carry its own duty.
Who in Bengaluru is asking for a drafted agreement right now?
- A precision engineering and machine tools unit in Peenya, papering supply and job work terms with an OEM customer, with confidentiality tight enough to cover drawings and tooling.
- That same unit on the workshop it rents: term, deposit, the duty base the deposit sits inside, and who restores the premises.
- A family trading business in Chickpet moving from an understanding between brothers to a written partnership deed, with roles, profit shares and an exit route.
- A services firm in Indiranagar signing a master agreement with an out of state customer, where the forum clause is what gets argued about.
- Any Bengaluru company taking premises on licence rather than on lease, which is charged and drafted differently.
Who drafts your agreement, and what gets checked twice?
Every document is written by a drafting lawyer for the transaction in front of us, then checked twice. Once for the commercial risk you are carrying, and once for the duty and registration position that decides whether it can be acted upon. Our CA and CS team works alongside the drafting lawyer, so the tax and entity questions are answered in the same pass. Jurisdiction follows your own registered address, never our Bengaluru office address. Talk to us before signature. Afterwards the options narrow fast.