NOC, Rent Agreement & Utility Bill for GST & MCA: The Complete Document Walkthrough

The three documents that decide GST and MCA approval

When you read CGST Rule 8, the MCA INC-22 form, or any officer-facing GST checklist, the entire address-proof chain comes down to three documents: a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the property owner, a rent / lease / licence agreement for the premises, and a recent utility bill or property tax receipt. Every other concern — stamp duty, witness signatures, notarisation, photograph of the building, lessor PAN — is a sub-clause hanging off one of those three.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs spelled this out unusually clearly in CBIC Instruction 03/2025-GST dated 17 April 2025, which caps the document list and explicitly bars proper officers from demanding extras outside the prescribed table. The instruction was a direct response to the rising count of registration applications stuck in REG-03 clarification limbo because officers were asking for documents like Aadhaar address proof of directors, society NOCs, photographs of every angle of the property, and panchayat licences that the CGST Rules never required.

This guide walks each of the three documents line by line. For each, you will see: the legal basis, the mandatory content elements, the Kerala-specific stamp duty and registration practice, the entity-type variations (proprietorship, partnership, Pvt Ltd, Section 8), and the rejection patterns that produce a FORM GST REG-03 deficiency memo. The last two sections are diagnostic: a triage of the seven most common rejection reasons with their fixes, and a tight checklist for CAs and CSes who handle these documents at volume. If you are reading this because you already received a REG-03 and need to fix it inside seven working days, jump to REG-03 deficiency memo: diagnostic + fix.

Document 1: No Objection Certificate (NOC) / Consent Letter

The NOC — officially called a Consent Letter in CBIC parlance, used interchangeably in the field — is the single document the officer reads first. It is the legal anchor that ties the applicant entity to the address. The other two documents (rent agreement, utility bill) support and corroborate it, but the NOC is what answers the threshold question: does this entity have the property owner’s express permission to use this address for statutory purposes?

The legal basis is CGST Rule 8 (read with Rule 25) for GST registration, and Section 12 of the Companies Act 2013 read with Rules 25 and 27 of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules 2014 for MCA company registration. Both regimes accept any genuine declaration of consent — there is no statutory NOC format — but both expect a specific set of content elements to be present.

Who can issue a NOC

Only the legal owner of the premises can issue the NOC. Sub-tenants cannot sub-let consent. If the property is owned jointly (spouses, family co-owners, partnership-owned commercial property), all co-owners should sign, or the principal co-owner should sign with the others recording explicit concurrence. Trust-owned or company-owned premises require a board resolution authorising the signatory.

For a virtual office, the NOC is issued by the building owner or the entity that holds the head-lease — not by the virtual office provider in their personal capacity, unless they are also the owner. At our Palarivattom premises the NOCs are issued in the legal property-owner’s name with the supporting title chain on file, which is why ownership-proof challenges on REG-03 are rare against our addresses.

The 12 content elements every NOC must carry

There is no statutory template, but a NOC that omits any of the following almost always invites a clarification notice or rejection:

1. Owner’s full name — exactly as on the property documents and the utility bill.
2. Owner’s address and PAN — the owner’s residential address (not the leased premises) and PAN. Officers cross-check this against the utility-bill name and the agreement signatory.
3. Applicant’s full legal name and constitution — proprietorship (with proprietor’s name), partnership (firm name as registered), LLP, Private Limited, OPC, Section 8, etc. Pvt Ltd applicants pre-incorporation should use “Proposed” before the name; post-incorporation, the CIN should appear.
4. Complete premises address — building name, floor, room/unit number, street, locality, city, PIN. The address must match character-for-character across the NOC, the rent agreement, and the utility bill. “LR Towers” and “L.R. Towers” have caused real rejections.
5. Survey number / Khata number / Property ID — the cadastral or municipal identifier of the property. Optional for GST but expected for MCA where the address is parsed into structured fields.
6. The substantive consent clause — “I have no objection to [Applicant’s legal name] using the said premises as its Principal Place of Business for registration under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act 2017 / as its Registered Office under the Companies Act 2013.” This sentence must explicitly name the statute. Generic “no objection to using the premises for business” is the single most common rejection-trigger in Kerala REG-03 memos.
7. Effective date — the date from which consent is granted. Should not predate the rent agreement.
8. Duration — either a fixed period (matching the rent agreement term) or the phrase “till the tenancy / licence subsists.” Open-ended consent without any duration reference is occasionally questioned.
9. Owner’s declaration of clear title — a one-line statement that the owner holds clear and marketable title to the premises and is competent to grant the consent. This shifts ownership-proof burden onto the owner and is what makes the NOC self-sufficient.
10. Owner’s signature and date — wet-ink signature with date directly below the signature block. Digital signatures with a valid DSC are accepted under the Information Technology Act 2000 §3, but officers in Kerala still prefer wet-ink for paper-pack submissions.
11. Two witnesses — name, address, and signature of two independent witnesses. Witnesses are not statutorily mandatory for a GST NOC, but are mandatory in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and parts of Maharashtra by state-circle practice, and are strongly recommended everywhere as belt-and-braces. Including them rarely hurts.
12. Optional notarisation — a notary public attestation on the back of the NOC. Not legally required for GST, but mandatory for MCA INC-22 when the NOC is presented as the only proof of consent.

Entity-specific NOC variants

The body of the NOC changes slightly depending on the legal constitution of the applicant:

• Proprietorship. Names the proprietor personally (“Ms. Anjali Menon, Proprietor, M/s Anjali Trading Co.”). The trade name appears alongside the proprietor’s legal name. The proprietor’s PAN — which is the firm’s PAN for GST — should be quoted.
• Partnership / LLP. Names the firm as registered under the Indian Partnership Act 1932 or the LLP Act 2008. Quotes the firm PAN and (for LLPs) the LLPIN. Signature of any partner with authority to act on the firm’s behalf is sufficient — the NOC is to the firm, not by it.
• Private Limited / OPC. Names the company with “Proposed” before the name pre-incorporation, or the CIN after incorporation. For INC-22 (registered office), this NOC is the formal consent of the owner to host the registered office. The naming convention matters: an NOC issued to “Acme Tech Pvt Ltd” will not validate an MCA filing for “Acme Technologies Private Limited” — the spelled-out form must match the MOA.
• Section 8 (non-profit) company. The NOC should additionally mention that the premises may be used for the non-profit object stated in the MOA. Some state circles specifically check for this language because they treat Section 8 applications with heightened scrutiny.

Kerala stamp paper: customary practice

CGST Rules do not require the NOC to be on stamp paper. The Kerala Stamp Act, 1959 does not levy duty on a pure consent letter (which conveys no interest in property). In practice, Ernakulam district GST circles accept the NOC on plain A4 paper or on the owner’s letterhead. Many conservative CAs nevertheless issue NOCs on a ₹100 non-judicial stamp paper as belt-and-braces — it costs little, removes a rare objection avenue, and lets the NOC double up as a quasi-affidavit of the owner’s declarations.

For NRIs and out-of-Kerala signatories who cannot conveniently buy Kerala stamp paper, the Kerala e-Stamping system through SHCIL (shcilestamp.com) and the Kerala Treasury portal allows the same ₹100 e-stamp to be downloaded after online payment. The e-stamp carries a unique certificate number that officers can verify, and is treated as equivalent to a physical non-judicial stamp paper.

Six common REG-03 rejection patterns on the NOC

These are the six wordings we see in actual REG-03 deficiency memos, each with the one-line fix:

• “Consent letter does not specifically mention GST registration / CGST Act 2017.” Fix: re-issue with the substantive clause naming the statute explicitly.
• “Ownership proof of the consenter not attached.” Fix: attach a copy of the latest property tax receipt, sale deed, or Khata certificate in the owner’s name. The owner’s declaration of clear title (content element #9) reduces but does not eliminate this objection.
• “Address on NOC does not match address declared in REG-01.” Fix: re-issue with character-exact address — including floor, room number, locality, PIN — matching the PPOB field on the application.
• “NOC is undated / signature not dated.” Fix: re-issue with a clear date next to the signature block. The substantive consent date and the signature date can differ; both should appear.
• “Witness details incomplete.” Fix: ensure both witnesses have name, full address, and signature — initials and a single town name are insufficient where the state circle expects witnesses.
• “NOC not on owner’s letterhead.” (MCA-specific) Fix: re-issue on the owner’s personal or company letterhead, with the owner’s address visible in the header. MCA INC-22 reviewers treat this as identity-corroboration of the owner; GST is more relaxed.

Document 2: Rent / Lease / Licence Agreement

The agreement is what gives the NOC operational weight. The NOC says “you may use,” the agreement says “for this consideration, for this duration, on these terms.” Without an agreement, a NOC reads as a gratuitous favour the owner can revoke at will — which is acceptable for some purposes but creates instability for statutory registration. Hence GST and MCA both expect both documents together.

Lease, rent agreement, or licence to use: the legal distinction

The three terms describe legally distinct instruments, but for GST and MCA all three are accepted when properly drafted:

• Lease. Defined by Section 105 of the Transfer of Property Act 1882. Transfers an interest in immovable property from lessor to lessee for a term in exchange for premium or rent. Creates a tenancy that is heritable, transferable (subject to terms), and that survives the lessor’s death. Mandatory registration under §17 Registration Act 1908 if the term exceeds 11 months or the annual rent exceeds the prescribed threshold.
• Rent agreement. Colloquial term, not a statutory category. In Kerala practice, “rent agreement” almost always refers to an 11-month lease deliberately drafted to stay outside the Registration Act’s mandatory-registration trigger. Legally it is still a lease; the term is just shortened.
• Licence to use. Defined by Section 52 of the Easements Act 1882. Grants bare permission to use property without transferring any interest. Does not create a tenancy. Revocable on the terms specified in the licence. Common in coworking, virtual office, and shared-workspace arrangements where the operator wants to retain control of the premises.

All three are accepted by GST officers. MCA INC-22 also accepts all three, but for company registered offices, registered leases of more than 11 months are preferred for the stability they confer.

Where applications fail is on vague licence-to-use documents issued by coworking operators. A licence that says “the Licensee may use any desk available on the day” without naming a specific cabin or unit, that shows a notional ₹1/month or ₹0 consideration to keep the deal off the tax books, or that is open-ended with no defined term — these get rejected because they do not establish a stable, identifiable premises for the registration. A virtual office licence that names a specific room/unit, recites a real annual fee, and runs for a fixed (renewable) term clears this bar cleanly.

Mandatory clauses every agreement should carry

• Parties — full legal names, addresses, and PANs of lessor and lessee. PAN of the applicant entity is mandatory; lessor PAN becomes mandatory if the agreement is unregistered (per CBIC Instruction 03/2025-GST §c).
• Premises — exact address with building name, floor, room/unit number, locality, PIN, and the carpet area or super built-up area of the demised space.
• Purpose — “commercial use as Principal Place of Business for GST registration / Registered Office under the Companies Act 2013.” A purpose clause that says merely “business” without naming the statute is occasionally questioned.
• Term — start date, end date, and any renewal mechanism. For 11-month agreements, the standard wording is “eleven (11) months commencing [date], renewable by mutual consent.”
• Lock-in — minimum commitment period before either party can exit. Not statutorily required, but its absence sometimes makes officers question whether the arrangement is genuine.
• Monthly consideration — the rent or licence fee. Must be a genuine market figure. ₹0 or ₹1 consideration is a red flag.
• Security deposit — amount, refundability, deductions.
• Jurisdiction — usually the courts at Ernakulam for Kochi-based premises.
• Termination — notice period, conditions for breach, return of premises.
• Owner-NOC clause — a covenant by the lessor / licensor that they will issue and maintain a NOC permitting the lessee’s GST and MCA registrations at the address. This single clause is what makes the NOC and the agreement internally consistent.

Kerala Stamp Act after the Finance Act 2024

The Kerala Finance Act 2024, in force April 2024, materially changed the stamp duty regime for leases. Where the older customary practice was to print rent agreements on a ₹100 or ₹200 non-judicial stamp paper, the revised Article 33 of the Kerala Stamp Act schedule now levies 8% stamp duty on a fair-value slab tied to tenure. For commercial leases of 11 months or less, the duty is computed on (gross rent payable over the term + advance / security deposit) × the applicable slab percentage. The Kerala Finance Bill 2024 contains the precise slab table.

For a virtual office licence at, say, ₹12,000/year with a ₹2,000 refundable deposit, this works out to an effective stamp value materially higher than the old ₹100 customary minimum — but still in the hundreds of rupees, not thousands. The registration fee, where the agreement is to be registered with the Sub-Registrar, is a further 2% of the consideration. Most Ernakulam-district lawyers and CAs we work with have updated their templates to the post-April-2024 slabs.

Registration with the Sub-Registrar

Section 17 of the Registration Act 1908 makes registration with the Sub-Registrar mandatory for leases exceeding 11 months OR where the annual rent exceeds the prescribed threshold. The standard workaround for short-term commercial agreements — including most virtual offices and coworking memberships — is the “11-month plus auto-renewal” structure, which keeps the instrument outside the mandatory-registration trigger while still providing operational continuity.

Where registration is required, Ernakulam district has seven Sub-Registrar offices: Ernakulam (Kakkanad), Tripunithura, Aluva, Kothamangalam, Muvattupuzha, Perumbavoor, and Kochi (Mattancherry). The presenting party books a slot via the Kerala Registration Department portal, pays the stamp duty and registration fee online, and presents both lessor and lessee (or their authorised representatives) for biometric capture. Most registrations in Ernakulam now close inside a single visit.

Notarisation: optional but advisable for unregistered agreements

A duly stamped agreement is legally enforceable whether notarised or not. Notarisation adds an extra layer of identity verification by a notary public and serves as evidentiary corroboration in any subsequent dispute. For unregistered 11-month agreements presented for GST registration, we usually recommend notarisation — it costs ₹100–₹300 in Kochi and removes one rare objection avenue.

Per-use-case language differences

• GST — purpose clause names CGST Act 2017; PPOB language is explicit.
• MCA — purpose clause names Companies Act 2013; agreement runs in the proposed company’s name with “Proposed” tag pre-incorporation.
• IEC (Import-Export Code) — purpose may reference DGFT IEC application; the agreement also doubles up as address proof for the IEC.
• Current account opening — the bank’s KYC process accepts the same agreement; some banks additionally want a rent receipt for the latest month.
• Udyam Registration — informal: the agreement and a self-declaration are sufficient.
• Shop & Establishment / Kerala Trade Licence — local body may want the agreement plus a property tax receipt.

Four red flags that get rent agreements rejected

• Boilerplate “licence to use any desk” for coworking. Without a specific cabin or unit, the licence does not establish a stable premises.
• Consideration shown as ₹0 or nominal. Officers read this as a sham instrument. Recite a genuine market consideration; if you want to offer a free address for goodwill, do it via a separate side-letter, not by zeroing the licence fee.
• Duration mismatch with NOC. A 24-month rent agreement paired with a NOC that says “for one year” produces a deficiency memo.
• Lessor on the agreement is not the owner on the utility bill. If the agreement is signed by an authorised representative or sub-letter, the chain must be documented and the NOC must come from the true legal owner.

Document 3: Utility Bill

The utility bill is the corroborating document. It serves two functions: it proves the premises actually exist (a real-world meter, a real-world municipal record), and it confirms the owner’s name and address against what the NOC and agreement claim. Where the NOC is the legal anchor and the agreement is the commercial anchor, the utility bill is the physical-reality anchor.

Acceptable utility bill types

CBIC Instruction 03/2025-GST and the MCA INC-22 help text both accept the following as utility bill / property tax document:

• Electricity bill (KSEB or licensee distribution company)
• Water bill (Kerala Water Authority)
• Landline telephone bill (BSNL or any TRAI-licensed operator)
• Piped gas / LPG distribution bill
• Municipal property tax receipt or Khata copy / Khata extract

What is not accepted: mobile phone bills (they ride on the subscriber’s billing address, not the property), internet / broadband bills (similarly portable and not tied to the property in the way a utility connection is), cable TV or DTH bills, and any bill not issued by a statutory utility or municipal authority.

The 60-day age limit

The bill must be dated within 2 months (60 days) of the GST application filing date. This 60-day window is uniform across CBIC Instruction 03/2025-GST and the MCA INC-22 (V3 portal) validation. MCA V3 system-enforces it — uploading a bill older than 60 days will cause the form to fail validation before submission. GST officers in Kerala enforce it manually but consistently; a 70-day-old bill will draw a REG-03 deficiency notice. The single exception is property tax receipts, which are annual instruments and are accepted if dated within the current financial year.

Whose name should be on the bill

The bill must be in the legal owner’s name — the same person who signs the NOC. This is the most important match in the entire document chain. CBIC Instruction 03/2025-GST §(c) provides one accommodation: if the applicant is in possession under a registered rent agreement and the utility connection is in the applicant’s own name, that combination can stand alone without an additional lessor-side utility bill. In every other case the bill must be in the owner’s name.

The hardest fact pattern is owner ≠ bill-name because the property was recently purchased and the utility hasn’t been transferred yet. The recovery is to submit the entire ownership chain:

• The registered sale deed or transfer document showing the new owner’s acquisition.
• The latest municipal property tax receipt in the new owner’s name (Kochi Corporation transfers this on application within 30 days of registration).
• One old utility bill in the previous owner’s name within the 60-day window — establishing that the connection is live.
• A NOC from the new owner that explicitly references the ownership chain (“I purchased the premises from [previous owner] vide sale deed dated …, currently in process of mutation of utility connection”).

Bill quality and format

A printed PDF e-bill downloaded from the utility’s own online portal is the gold standard — it carries the connection number, consumer name, address, bill date, and a unique reference number that the officer can verify on the utility’s site. A scanned paper bill is acceptable if it is fully legible. Hand-written meter slips, spot-billing summaries without the official KSEB or KWA format, photocopies of photocopies, and screenshots that crop out the date are all rejected on sight.

Kerala-specific notes

KSEB (Kerala State Electricity Board) issues two formats: Spot Billing receipts for LT (domestic / small commercial) connections, and Online e-bills for HT / large commercial connections. Both are bilingual Malayalam and English and require no translation for GST or MCA submission. Owners can download the latest e-bill at any time from the KSEB self-service portal.

Kochi Corporation property tax e-receipts from epay.cochinmunicipalcorporation.kerala.gov.in are accepted as standalone ownership proof — they carry the Property ID, owner name, ward, and the current financial year’s tax payment. For Palarivattom and other Ernakulam municipal wards, this is often the cleanest single document to submit alongside the NOC and agreement, because it triples as utility bill, ownership proof, and address proof in one document.

How officers cross-check the three together

The most important diagnostic insight in this guide: officers do not just look at each of the three documents in isolation. They run four cross-checks that compare the documents against each other and against the REG-01 (or INC-22) form. A document that passes a solo review can still trip a cross-check.

• (a) Address on NOC = Address on Rent Agreement = Address on Utility Bill = PPOB field on REG-01. Character-exact, including floor, room number, street, locality, PIN. The single most common rejection reason in our experience is a comma, an abbreviation, or a transposed digit between two of these four. “LR Towers, 2nd Floor” vs “LR Towers — 2F” vs “L.R. Towers, II Floor” — pick one form and propagate it everywhere. A good provider standardises this at issue time.
• (b) Owner name on NOC = Owner name on Utility Bill or Property Tax Receipt. Exact match. Initials versus spelled-out names, “Sri” / “Smt” honorifics, or middle-name variations all cause mismatches. The cleanest practice is to use the legal name exactly as it appears on the property documents.
• (c) Utility bill date is within 60 days of the application filing date. Officers note the bill date and the REG-01 acknowledgement date side by side. A 65-day-old bill earns a REG-03 even if everything else is clean.
• (d) Lessor identity proof depending on registration status. If the rent agreement is registered with the Sub-Registrar, additional lessor ID is not needed. If unregistered (the 11-month case), the lessor’s PAN and an Aadhaar / driving licence / passport are mandatory, per CBIC Instruction 03/2025-GST §(c).

One critical caveat per the same CBIC Instruction §B: officers cannot demand additional documents beyond the prescribed list. If you receive a REG-03 asking for “photographs of the property from four angles,” “Aadhaar of all directors,” “panchayat licence,” or “society NOC” — these are outside the prescribed list and you can respond citing the Instruction. We have seen several such over-asks reversed by quoting the Instruction in the reply, without needing to escalate.

What MCA expects (differences from GST)

MCA company incorporation uses substantially the same three-document triplet for the registered office address under Section 12 Companies Act 2013, declared via FORM INC-22 (or in SPICe+ Part B at the time of incorporation). The differences from GST are five:

• Utility bill age is system-enforced. The MCA V3 portal will reject any utility bill dated more than 2 months before the filing. There is no manual discretion.
• Only registered agreements are accepted for leases longer than 11 months. Where GST will accept an unregistered long lease with supporting lessor ID, MCA will not.
• NOC must be on the owner’s letterhead with the owner’s residential or business address visible in the header. Plain-paper NOCs sometimes pass GST but consistently draw clarification notices from MCA reviewers.
• Rent receipt for the latest month is also required in addition to the agreement and utility bill. This is unique to MCA and confirms the agreement is in active operation.
• Exterior photograph of the premises with nameplate showing the company name is required for INC-22A active-company verification. This is filed separately under the INC-22A regime but uses the same address-proof base.

If you are doing GST and company incorporation in the same week — which many Pvt Ltd founders are — the cleanest approach is to issue the document pack to MCA standards (letterhead NOC, registered agreement if >11 months, latest rent receipt, exterior nameplate photo). Documents that satisfy MCA always satisfy GST; the reverse is not always true. See our companion guide on the registered office address in Kerala for MCA company incorporation.

REG-03 deficiency memo: diagnostic + fix

If you have received a FORM GST REG-03 deficiency memo (or had your application rejected on REG-05 and have just refiled), this is the section to read carefully. From five years of handling REG-03 responses on customer applications, these are the seven most common reasons applications get rejected — with the specific document fix for each:

1. “Consent letter / NOC does not specifically mention GST registration or CGST Act 2017.” Fix: Re-issue the NOC with content element #6 — “I have no objection to [Applicant] using the said premises as its Principal Place of Business for registration under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act 2017.” Mention the statute by name. Generic “no objection to using the premises for business” is the most common single rejection-trigger in Kerala.
2. “Ownership proof of the consenter not provided.” Fix: Attach the most recent Kochi Corporation property tax e-receipt in the owner’s name, or the sale deed / Khata copy. If your provider is well-organised (we keep all of these on file), they should be able to issue the attachment same-day.
3. “Address on consent letter does not match address declared in REG-01 PPOB.” Fix: Re-issue all three documents (NOC, agreement, utility bill) with the address exactly matching the PPOB field — including building name punctuation, floor designation, room number, locality, and PIN. This is by far the most preventable rejection.
4. “Utility bill is older than 2 months.” Fix: Download a fresh e-bill from the utility’s online portal (KSEB self-service, Kochi Corporation property tax portal, Kerala Water Authority portal). Do not submit the next month’s estimated bill — submit only an issued bill within the 60-day window.
5. “Rent agreement does not name lessor PAN; lessor identity proof not provided.” Fix: For unregistered agreements (the standard 11-month case), supply the lessor’s PAN and one Aadhaar / driving licence / passport. For registered agreements, this objection should not have been raised — respond citing CBIC Instruction 03/2025-GST §(c) which exempts registered agreements from additional lessor-ID requirements.
6. “Documents demanded outside prescribed list.” Fix: If the REG-03 asks for items not in the CBIC Instruction 03/2025-GST list — society NOCs, four-angle photographs, panchayat licences, director Aadhaars as address proof — respond with a covering letter quoting the Instruction. Most over-asks reverse without escalation.
7. “Address inspection report negative — no signage, no business operation observed.” Fix: This is the verification-side failure. Ensure the nameboard is physically up at the premises and that staff at the address can confirm the business operates from there. For our addresses, every business has its nameboard up on the day GST is filed, which is why we rarely see this failure mode on customers registered through us.

Got a deficiency memo? We can issue compliant replacement documents in 24–48 hours, paired with on-the-ground nameboard and verification support if the inspection has failed. Five years of officer-tested document formats mean we usually know exactly which clause to tweak. Talk to us via the register-for-virtual-office form and reference “REG-03 rescue.”

For CAs and CSes: clean format checklist

For consultants handling these documents at volume, here is the tight checklist we use internally. Screenshot or share with junior staff:

1. NOC names the statute explicitly (“CGST Act 2017” for GST; “Companies Act 2013” for MCA).
2. Owner name on NOC = owner name on utility bill = owner name on property tax receipt — character-exact, no honorifics drift.
3. Address on NOC = address on agreement = address on utility bill = PPOB / registered office in REG-01 / INC-22 — character-exact, including floor and PIN.
4. Utility bill dated within last 60 days of filing; e-bill PDF preferred over scanned paper.
5. Agreement on stamp paper at Kerala Finance Act 2024 slab (not the old ₹100 default); registered with Sub-Registrar if >11 months.
6. Unregistered agreement → lessor PAN + Aadhaar / DL / passport attached.
7. For MCA: NOC on letterhead + latest rent receipt + exterior nameplate photograph.
8. For Pvt Ltd pre-incorporation: NOC and agreement name the company with “Proposed” prefix; replace with CIN after incorporation.

For property owners asked to sign a NOC

If a tenant or licensee has asked you to sign a NOC for their GST or MCA registration, three questions come up repeatedly:

• Does signing create a tenancy? No. The NOC is a declaration of consent for statutory registration purposes; it does not by itself transfer any interest or create rights of occupation. Those come from the rent agreement or licence, not the NOC.
• Does it create tax liability? The NOC by itself does not. Income from rent under the agreement is taxable in the owner’s hands under the Income Tax Act regardless of whether a NOC is issued — issuing or withholding the NOC does not change the tax position.
• Can it be revoked? Yes, on reasonable notice, particularly if the underlying tenancy or licence is terminated. The applicant must update their GST or company registered office to a new address once consent is withdrawn.

We have been issuing NOCs from our Palarivattom premises since 2019 — the documents are real, the building is real, and the title chain is on file for any officer who needs to verify it.

Quick answers

Related guides

• GST registration with a virtual office in Kochi — the pillar guide on the GST side, with the REG-01 to REG-30 sequence and Kerala-specific verification practice.
• Registered office address in Kerala for MCA company incorporation — the MCA-side companion guide on INC-22 / INC-22A and SPICe+ Part B.
• Multi-state GST for Amazon & Flipkart sellers — when you need a virtual office address in multiple states.