RERA Consultancy Services for Developers and Promoters

RERA Compliance Advisory for Developers in Maharashtra

RERA changed what it means to be a developer in India. Before 2016 a promoter could launch on a plan, collect deposits, and manage cash across projects as convenience dictated. Now seventy percent of every collection sits in a designated account that can only be drawn against certified completion, every quarter of progress is published, and the timeline you declare at registration becomes a legal commitment enforceable by every allottee who bought on it.

N D Savla & Associates advises developers and promoters across Maharashtra on the full RERA compliance lifecycle — from structuring a project before registration through quarterly reporting, withdrawal certification, extension and eventual closure. Because we are chartered accountants, the certification work that RERA places on the profession sits with the same team that maintains your quarterly updates and annual audit, rather than being handed to a separate firm.

This page sets out what the Act requires of a promoter, where developers most often fall short, how a compliance engagement runs across a project life, and how obligations differ across project types. The mechanics of registering a specific project are dealt with separately on the project registration page.

What Are a Promoter Obligations Under RERA?

Section 11 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 sets out the core duties: register the project before advertising or selling, disclose project details on the authority website, keep the disclosures current every quarter, use the designated account discipline for collections, adhere to the declared completion date, and rectify structural defects for five years from possession.

Around that core sit further requirements. Sale must be by carpet area as defined in the Act, not by super built-up area. The agreement for sale must follow the prescribed form. No more than ten percent of the cost can be taken as advance before the agreement is executed and registered. Alterations to sanctioned plans need allottee consent in the proportion the Act specifies.

The obligation developers underestimate most is the timeline. The completion date declared at registration is not an aspiration — it is the reference point from which delay is measured, and Section 18 gives every allottee the right to withdraw with interest, or to remain and claim interest for every month of delay, if it is missed.

Where Do Developers Most Often Fall Short?

Across the projects we review, the same handful of failures recur.

Note: the designated account discipline is about sequence, not just percentage. Collections must go into the designated account first and be withdrawn against certification. Routing money through an operating account and transferring the balance afterwards does not satisfy the requirement, even if the arithmetic ends up correct.

Which Developers Need RERA Compliance Support?

The Act applies far more widely than to large residential towers alone.

Developers Launching a New Project

Any project above the area or unit threshold must be registered before a single advertisement is issued or a booking taken. The decision that matters most is made before registration — how the project is phased, what completion date is declared, and how the cost estimate is built — because all three become binding. This work leads directly into project registration.

Developers with Ongoing Registered Projects

Once registered, the obligations are continuous: quarterly updates, designated account operation, certification for every withdrawal, and annual audit. Developers running several projects simultaneously face the harder problem, since each project has its own account, its own timeline and its own reporting cycle, and cross-utilisation between them is precisely what the Act was designed to stop.

Developers Facing Delay or Needing to Change a Project

Where completion will overrun the declared date, the correct route is an extension application before the date passes, not after. Where the project itself changes hands or scope, transfer and takeover or modification and change services apply. Doing nothing is the one option that reliably produces liability.

Redevelopment and Society Projects

Redevelopment of existing society buildings brings RERA obligations alongside society and municipal requirements. Existing members receiving reconstructed flats are treated differently from new purchasers, and the development agreement, corpus payments and transit rent arrangements all need to sit consistently with the RERA disclosures. This is where documentation prepared before the Act tends to conflict with what the authority now expects.

How Has Real Estate Regulation Evolved in India?

RERA was a response to three decades in which the sector grew faster than the law governing it.

Before 1991: State Flat Ownership Legislation

Maharashtra had the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act, 1963, one of the earliest attempts to regulate flat sales, requiring disclosure and an agreement before accepting more than twenty percent of consideration. Enforcement, however, ran through civil courts, which meant years of litigation for an individual buyer. There was no regulator, no project register and no mechanism to monitor whether money collected for one building was being spent on it.

1991 to 2010: Expansion Without a Regulator

Liberalisation, urban migration and housing finance growth produced a construction boom. Developers routinely launched on the strength of a plan, funded land acquisition from bookings on an earlier project, and treated timelines as marketing. Buyers had little information and less recourse. The absence of any central register meant the same land could carry multiple encumbrances a purchaser could not discover.

2016: RERA and the Shift to a Regulated Sector

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 established regulatory authorities in every state, made project registration compulsory above prescribed thresholds, mandated the seventy percent designated account discipline under Section 4(2)(l)(D), standardised carpet area, and created a fast-track adjudication mechanism for allottee complaints. MahaRERA was established with effect from May 2017 and has been the most active state authority since.

Where Things Stand Now

MahaRERA has built a substantial body of orders and regulatory circulars covering quarterly reporting formats, the certification requirements placed on chartered accountants, engineers and architects, and the treatment of lapsed projects. Registration, updates and complaints all run through the authority online systems, and every project compliance history is publicly visible. For a developer, compliance is now part of the sales proposition rather than a back-office matter, because buyers and lenders check the record.

How Does a RERA Compliance Engagement Work?

We structure developer engagements in eight steps that follow the project rather than the calendar.

1. Pre-Registration Structuring Review — Before anything is filed we review the project phasing, the proposed completion date and the cost estimate. A declared date that assumes everything goes right creates liability under Section 18 the moment it slips, and this is the single most consequential decision a promoter makes.
2. Title, Approval and Document Verification — Land title documents, sanctioned plans, commencement certificate and encumbrance position are checked for consistency, since these are disclosed publicly and any gap becomes visible to every prospective buyer and their lawyer.
3. Registration and Disclosure Preparation — The registration application and the accompanying declarations are prepared, with the cost of project, timelines and unit details reconciled across every document so the disclosures agree with each other.
4. Designated Account Setup and Operating Protocol — The separate account is opened and a written protocol established for how collections are banked and how withdrawals are certified. Getting the operating discipline right at the start avoids the reconstruction exercise that otherwise becomes necessary at audit.
5. Withdrawal Certification Cycle — Each withdrawal from the designated account is supported by certification of the proportion of completion. We prepare the chartered accountant certification and coordinate with the project engineer and architect so the three certificates are consistent.
6. Quarterly Update Filing — Progress, approvals, inventory sold and financial details are updated on the authority portal each quarter. Consistency across quarters matters as much as the individual filing, because an unexplained jump or reversal invites scrutiny.
7. Annual Audit and Statement of Accounts — The annual certification of the project accounts is prepared, reconciling collections, designated account movements and expenditure. This is where discipline maintained during the year pays off and where its absence becomes undeniable.
8. Event Management Through the Project Life — Extensions, plan modifications, transfers, correction of disclosures and response to any complaint or notice are handled as they arise, with the position taken consistently with what has already been filed.

For developers running several projects, we usually recommend an internal audit layer across the portfolio, because the failure mode in multi-project groups is not a single bad decision but gradual cross-utilisation between project accounts that nobody documented.

Warning: the Act provides for penalties calculated on project cost for failure to register, for contravention of other provisions, and imprisonment for continued non-compliance with authority orders. Liability attaches to the promoter, which for a company means the persons responsible for its conduct — not the entity alone.

How Do RERA Obligations Differ by Project Type?

The statute is common. What changes is which obligation carries the most risk.

Large Phased Residential Developments

Phasing is the central question. Each phase is registered separately with its own account, timeline and reporting, so the temptation to fund an early phase from collections on a later one is both strong and precisely what the designated account discipline prohibits. Phase boundaries declared at registration should reflect how construction will genuinely proceed, because redrawing them later is difficult.

Redevelopment and Society Projects

The dual relationship — existing members and new purchasers — has to be reflected consistently in the development agreement and the RERA disclosures. Transit rent obligations, corpus payments and the entitlement of existing members are frequently documented in society agreements drafted without reference to what will be disclosed, and reconciling the two after registration is far harder than before it.

Commercial and Mixed-Use Projects

Commercial projects fall within the Act on the same basis as residential, a point still occasionally missed. Mixed-use developments raise questions about how common areas and shared amenities are allocated between components, and the carpet area definition applies to commercial units as well, which affects how space is marketed.

Plotted Development and Small Projects

Plotted developments are covered where they exceed the prescribed thresholds, and promoters of small projects sometimes assume they fall outside the Act when they do not. Where marketing is done through intermediaries, the promoter should confirm those intermediaries hold valid registration, since dealing through an unregistered agent is itself a contravention — covered on our RERA for agents page.

Why Choose N D Savla & Associates for RERA Compliance?

These are the five reasons developers engage us.

• Chartered accountants who issue the certificates the Act requires. The withdrawal and annual certifications RERA places on the profession are prepared by the same team that maintains the project accounts, so the numbers reconcile rather than being defended after the fact.
• We advise before the declaration, not after the slip. The completion date and cost estimate declared at registration determine your liability for the life of the project, and that is where our involvement is worth most.
• Designated account discipline set up properly. A written operating protocol from day one avoids the reconstruction exercise that follows when collections have been routed through a general account for two years.
• Portfolio-level view for multi-project developers. Cross-utilisation between project accounts happens gradually and is the most serious finding a developer can face, so we monitor it across the group rather than project by project.
• Filings kept consistent over time. Quarterly updates, extension applications and audit certifications are prepared against what has already been filed, because contradictions between your own submissions are what attract scrutiny.

Registration, quarterly reporting and every compliance filing are made through the systems of the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority, and we work from the orders and circulars published at maharera.maharashtra.gov.in, so the position taken reflects current regulatory practice rather than the Act read in isolation.

Frequently Asked Questions for Developers