[Q&A]: Super built-up area is how many times the total floor area in percentage?

One of our readers, Suguna's Asks:

What percentage of the total area needs to be added to the total area to find out the super built-up area?

Team@Bricks-n-Mortar Answers:
Dear Suguna,
Foremost we welcome and appreciate you writing in to us. Also, since you have not mentioned your locational details and your personal profile also being reserved, we could not ascertain which part of the globe you are from. However, taking a cue from your user name, we will be answering your query in perspective of Indian bylaws and trade practices.

India, like most of the countries in the world, have her own Indian Standard (Code of practice) ~ IS : 3861 - 1975, First Revision Fourth Reprint November 1994; titled "Method of measurement of plinth, carpet and rentable areas of buildings" which, as the name suggests, chalks out uniform method of measurement of the plinth area, carpet area and the rentable area of any particular building. This code of practice was first formulated in the year 1966 so as to provide a common unified method across the entire length and breadth of the country and across various state and national departments, which prior to formulation of this code used to have different methods of calculation and representation.

Unfortunately there is no Code of practice or Standard yet compiled here in India for calculating the Super Area (also called Super Built-up Area) of a building. Different State Development boards, Municipal Corporations, Central and State PWDs, regulatory bodies, builders, societies, realty developers and individuals, etc. have their own methods / perceptions of calculation of the Super Area although the guiding principle remains the same for all which underlines the fact that the total super area is equal to or greater than the total constructed area.

And since the Super Area is nothing but a more or less hypothetically derived/calculated area statement, which also includes various factored-into proportionate open, sharing and common areas of the building premises in addition to the more easily and accurately calculatable plinth / carpet areas (as explained in one of our previous posts, titled- "What’s the Difference between Floor Area, Carpet Area & Built-up Area?"), the requirement of a uniform method of calculation of super area becomes more and more prudent to have.

Coming back specifically to the query, it may be generalized from Indian realty market perspective that the Super Area for residential buildings may fall somewhere in the range of about 110 to 150 percent of the total floor area of an individual residential unit. In simpler terms, the super area may be calculated by adding about 10 to 50 percent more area to the total floor area of a building, which in turn will depend upon the local regulatory authority guidelines as well as the builder's/ department's/ society's/ etc.'s design concept of total usage of the premises and its proportionate distribution among the total residents/ owners of the building.

B-n-M's SPECIAL NOTE: 
Team bricks-n-mortar would again like to caution its readers to pay full attention to such Super Area or Super Built-up Area figures flaunted by the builders and property sellers while purchasing any property since the super area figures are often highly manipulated figures, which generally are non-provable at the buyer's end since such calculations are based upon various hypothetical parameters, assumptions and prospective property seller's incurred/planned cost-to-profit margin ratios. Some of the builders manipulate these figures highly to wrongly advertise their property price offers as significantly lower on "per square feet (psf)" basis only to lure uninformed buyers who may think they are getting the property cheaper than others. The potential property buyers, therefore, must ask for written verifiable details of the 'super area-to- total floor area' percentage factors considered by the property sellers besides the other most important & necessary details as what net carpet area the buyer will eventually get after the sale deed is completed.

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Related post on this blog:
"What’s the Difference between Floor Area, Carpet Area & Built-up Area?" 
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