All About Preferential Location Charges

What is PLC or Preferential Location Charges?

A PLC or preferential location charges is an additional cost that a home buyer has to pay for booking a unit which has an advantage over others in terms of location. A preferred location within an apartment complex may mean an apartment that faces a park or is a corner plot near the main road.

How is PLC calculated?

The preferred location and the fee for it varies with the project type, location of the city and climatic conditions, the floor number etc. It depends on the size, location and alignment and construction quality. In the absence of standard rules that govern the laws relating to PLCs, developers strategize it the way they can apply PLC for each unit, in order to maximize the profit from sales. The amount of PLC charged varies across different developers and projects.

Each floor has a different PLC and floors closer to the ground have the highest PLCs. In luxury projects, generally situated in prime locations of a city, a higher PLC is charged on each unit as compared to other luxury projects. In the case of towers, usually penthouses in a tower fetch a developer the highest PLC. In the case of independent villas, an independent villa with personal parking space, park and swimming pool costs more. 

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PLC for floors depends on the climatic conditions of the city and the topography. In the cities like Mumbai were the climate is humid, high-rise apartments that are more airy are priced high and have a higher PLC. Meanwhile, in Delhi and north India, there are low-rise apartments and villas and hence PLC here is higher if your apartment is closer to the ground.

PLC is usually charged per sq. ft of the super area of your apartment.

PLC = Rate On The Real Estate Developer's PLC Rate Card X Super Area Of The Apartment

Therefore, bigger the apartment, higher the PLC. The latest trend is to design projects in a manner that each apartment and floor has some kind of PLC. To give some relief to home buyers, developers only charge for two PLC even if the unit attracts more than two PLCs.

Is PLC negotiable?

The buyer can balance the PLC charges by investing in a project at the time of the launch. The initial discount that the developer offers can compensate for that amount.