₹999 buys a lawyer drafted agreement for a Mumbai business, delivered in 3 to 5 days, with two rounds of revisions and an execution checklist showing exactly how to stamp and sign it. What it does not include is the state's cut. Stamp duty here is a separate levy under the Maharashtra Stamp Act, paid through GRAS or the e-SBTR route, and the figure depends on the instrument and its value. We compute it before you execute anything. A shareholders' agreement for a BKC advisory firm and a supply contract for a Kalbadevi textile house start at the same base price and diverge only where the complexity does.
What is agreement drafting, and which Maharashtra office actually touches your contract?
Agreement drafting is the work of turning a commercial understanding into a document that a court will read the way you meant it. No registrar approves a contract. What the state controls is everything around the signature, and three offices matter. The duty on the instrument is computed under the state's own stamp statute rather than the central Indian Stamp Act, and paid through GRAS. Registration, where the document needs it, runs through the sub registrar offices under IGR Maharashtra, with e-registration open for leave and licence agreements. Disputes land in the courts at Mumbai, which for larger commercial claims means the Bombay High Court, with its ordinary original civil jurisdiction and its Commercial Division. A good draft keeps all three in view from the first clause.
What goes wrong when Mumbai businesses sign first and draft later?
The mistakes we see are specific, and most surface only when the relationship sours.
- A template downloaded with a Delhi or Bengaluru jurisdiction clause left in, so a Lower Parel seller ends up defending a claim in another state's courts.
- An agreement signed on plain paper with the duty never paid, on the assumption that stamping can be sorted out later.
- A leave and licence for an Andheri East office signed and filed away but never registered, which leaves the licensee's GST principal place of business proof exposed when an officer asks for it.
- An arbitration clause that names an arbitrator but no seat, so the parties spend months arguing about which court supervises the arbitration before anyone argues the dispute itself.
- A WhatsApp thread standing in for a partnership deed between two brothers running a wholesale counter at Crawford Market.
Each of these is cheap to prevent at the drafting stage and expensive to repair after it.
What does the fee cover, and which clauses must the draft carry?
The ₹999 base price covers a standard agreement: drafting by a lawyer, a legal review, two revisions and the execution checklist. Complex instruments, multi party deals and documents that need registration are quoted after the first call, always before work starts. Two costs sit outside the fee because they go to the state, not to us: stamp duty, paid through GRAS or e-SBTR, and registration fees where the document must be registered. The clause checklist below is what our lawyers run every Mumbai draft against.
| Clause | What the draft must state | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Parties and signatories | Legal names, CIN or PAN, registered address, who signs and under what authority | A signature without authority is the first thing the other side attacks |
| Stamping | The instrument type, so duty is computed and paid through GRAS before execution | An unstamped document is a weak document on the day you need it |
| Registration | Whether IGR Maharashtra registration is compulsory, as it is for leave and licence, or not needed | Compulsory registration skipped is a defect no later fix cures cheaply |
| Governing law and courts | Indian law, courts at Mumbai, with the Bombay High Court where the claim value fits its original side | Keeps the dispute in the city where the parties and the evidence are |
| Arbitration seat | Seat at Mumbai, number of arbitrators, language, institution or ad hoc | The seat decides which court supervises the arbitration and hears any challenge |
| Term, exit and deposit | Notice period, lock in, refund of deposit, consequences of early exit | Most disputes we see are exits, not breaches |
Who needs drafted agreements across the Mumbai metro region?
Every business signs contracts. The ones that reach us tend to fall into a few recognisable shapes.
- A fund and financial services consultant in BKC who advises family offices and needs an advisory agreement that separates advice from execution, a non disclosure agreement for every mandate, and a fee clause precise about what triggers payment.
- The same consultant, six months later, taking on a Nariman Point partner and needing a shareholders' agreement before the first cheque clears.
- A family textile business in Kalbadevi converting a handshake arrangement with its Bhiwandi powerloom suppliers into a written supply agreement, and rewriting a partnership deed the grandfather signed for a firm the grandchildren now run.
- A SaaS founder in Powai who needs a master services agreement with statements of work, because each enterprise client wants its own terms.
- A gems exporter in Andheri East signing a consignment agreement with an overseas buyer and wanting Mumbai, not the buyer's home city, as the seat of arbitration.
If your situation is not on this list, it is still very likely one we have drafted before.
How do we run the drafting from our side?
- You call or send the deal outline, and a lawyer calls back within 30 minutes to understand the parties, the commercial terms, and where the premises or the performance sit.
- We confirm the instrument type, which decides the stamp duty computation and whether registration applies, and send a fixed quote in writing.
- A lawyer drafts from a blank page against the clause checklist above, with Mumbai as the jurisdiction and the arbitration seat unless your deal has a reason to differ.
- You review the draft. Two rounds of revisions are included, and most clients close in one.
- We compute the duty, tell you how to pay it through GRAS or e-SBTR, and where registration applies, explain the IGR Maharashtra route for your document.
- You receive the final agreement and an execution checklist covering who signs, in what order, and with which supporting resolutions. Nothing in the process needs an office visit.
Stamping or registration: which does your document actually need?
Almost every agreement needs stamping. Very few need registration. Confusing the two is the most common question we field from Mumbai clients, so here is the line. Stamping is a tax on the instrument, computed by type and value, and paid electronically through GRAS or e-SBTR. We print no duty figure on this page because the schedule is amended from time to time and the number depends on your document; we compute it before execution. Registration is a separate act of recording the document with the sub registrar under IGR Maharashtra, compulsory only for certain instruments. The one that catches people most often is the leave and licence agreement. Section 55 of the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999 makes it compulsorily registrable, with the obligation resting on the landlord. E-registration is available for these, and the registered agreement is also what a GST officer expects to see as the principal place of business proof. Property linked documents are valued against the state's Ready Reckoner rates, one more reason a figure printed on a generic page is usually wrong for yours.
Which court, registrar or sub registrar does your address answer to?
Jurisdiction clauses are where a Mumbai agreement earns its keep. Our default is courts at Mumbai for litigation and the same city as the seat for arbitration. The Bombay High Court, established in 1862, has ordinary original civil jurisdiction and a Commercial Division that hears commercial suits. A seat clause naming the city puts the supervising court in the same place as the parties. The seat and the venue are not the same thing, and a draft that names a Nariman Point hotel as the venue while leaving the seat blank has settled nothing.
For a partnership deed, the firm registers with the Registrar of Firms, Maharashtra, whose head office is in the city, and state practice makes that registration effectively essential.
For a shareholders' agreement, the contract itself is private, but the terms you want enforceable against the company go into the articles, which are filed with the registrar for the company's registered office. Since 16 February 2026 there are two. A registered office inside BMC limits, which means the districts of Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban, files with ROC Mumbai-I. One anywhere beyond that boundary, Thane included, files with ROC Mumbai-II at Navi Mumbai. The line follows the company's own registered office and nothing else.
Why have LegalX India draft your Mumbai agreements?
Because the draft is built for Maharashtra from the first line, not adapted from a national template at the end. Our 50+ experts include CAs, CSs and lawyers who work deals in this city daily, and 10+ years of drafting for 15,000+ clients has left us with a clause bank tuned to how disputes here actually play out. Every draft carries the stamp duty computation, the registration call and the jurisdiction and seat clauses as standard. Pricing is fixed before work begins and the whole engagement runs online, though you are welcome to sit with a lawyer at our Vashi office in Navi Mumbai if you prefer a table to a screen. For the national picture, including the agreement types we draft and how review of the other side's paper works, read the full agreement drafting process nationwide. To start, call +91 96356 85435 or send us the deal outline and we will call you back within 30 minutes.