RERA Registration

You cannot put up a hoarding, run a Google ad, accept a booking cheque, or even quote a price on WhatsApp until your project sits on the State RERA portal with a registration number against it. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 made that the hard line a decade ago, and State authorities are now enforcing it with adjudicating-officer notices, suo-motu deregistration, and penalties that can reach 10% of project cost.

This page covers what registration actually involves — the 70% project bank account, the architect-engineer-CA certification chain, the Quarterly Progress Report, and the five-year structural-defect liability — and how to set it up so the project clears authority review the first time and stays compliant through possession.

At a Glance

• Who must register: Any project where land exceeds 500 sqm or apartments exceed 8 — before any advertisement, marketing or sale.
• Governing law: Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, read with State RERA Rules and authority orders.
• Authority: Your State RERA — MahaRERA, K-RERA, UP-RERA, TG-RERA, HRERA, TNRERA, DRERA and equivalents.
• Project registration turnaround: 30-60 days end-to-end, including document collection, bank setup and portal review.
• Agent registration turnaround: 15-30 days from document submission to registration number.
• Section 3 penalty: Up to 10% of estimated project cost, with three-year imprisonment exposure on continued default.
• 70% rule: Receivables go into a separate scheduled-bank account, withdrawn only in proportion to certified completion.
• Defect liability: Five years from possession under Section 14(3) — statutory minimum, cannot be diluted by agreement.

What's New for FY 2026-27

State RERAs have moved from passive registration to active supervision over the last 18 months. A few shifts that affect every new registration filed this year:

• MahaRERA enforcement drive: Several thousand projects flagged for non-filing of QPRs; recovery warrants are now routed through the District Collector and conciliation forums are being used as a first stop before AO proceedings.
• MahaRERA Order 60/2024 follow-through: Quarterly Self-Certification of compliance is now compulsory alongside the QPR — the promoter signs off personally on 70% account utilisation and plan adherence.
• K-RERA portal upgrade: Real-time approval validation now ties the registration application to BBMP, BDA and planning-authority databases, which means stale or contested sanctions are rejected at filing rather than at scrutiny.
• UP-RERA standard model agreement: The State has notified a binding model agreement for sale with carpet-area, possession-date, and refund clauses that developers cannot soften through addenda.
• Agent CPD requirement: Several States now require Continuing Professional Development credits at the time of agent renewal — registration is no longer a one-time form, and brokerage paid to lapsed agents fails the 70%-account test.

Why You Cannot Skip This

RERA is not a registration you can defer until launch is closer. The trigger is advertising, not selling — and every other downstream activity is gated on the registration number being live.

• No registration, no marketing: Brochures, hoardings, social posts, channel-partner WhatsApp groups, EOI campaigns — each piece must carry the registration number and QR code, or it is illegal.
• Section 3 penalty bite: Up to 10% of estimated project cost, with imprisonment exposure of up to three years on continued non-registration after authority direction.
• Booking money becomes refundable: Every cheque you have accepted without registration is recoverable with prescribed-rate interest the moment an allottee demands it.
• Project finance gets harder: Banks and housing-finance companies now ask for the RERA registration number before sanctioning construction or LRD facilities.
• Listing portals will not accept the project: MagicBricks, 99acres, Housing.com and NoBroker block listings without a valid registration number — your demand-generation engine simply does not start.
• Title-search dead end: Buyers and their lawyers cross-check State RERA listings before signing. A project that does not appear on the dashboard will not close.

If the registration number is not on the brochure, the brochure is illegal — and so is every cheque collected against it.

How It Actually Works

Six stages, run partially in parallel, take a typical mid-sized project from eligibility check to live registration number in 30-60 days depending on State.

Step 1: Eligibility and State RERA Mapping (2-3 days)

We check land area, apartment count and project status (new vs. ongoing) against the threshold in the relevant State Rules. The right State RERA is identified by where the land sits, and we pull up its current fee schedule, State-specific declarations, and any local quirks — for instance, plot-only or redevelopment treatment in States that have a separate sub-flow.

Step 2: Document and Approval Pack (10-15 days)

Title deed, mutation, encumbrance certificate, land-use approval, sanctioned layout, building-plan approval, environmental clearance where applicable, fire NOC, airport and CRZ NOCs where the site demands, structural drawings, service plans and a wing-wise carpet-area schedule.

Architect, engineer and CA certifications are drafted in the State-prescribed format, and the developer's five-year track record — past and ongoing projects, completed and pending — is compiled with supporting evidence.

Step 3: 70% Project Bank Account Setup (5-7 days)

A separate scheduled-bank account is opened in the project name, and the bank issues a written acknowledgment that it is a RERA-escrow account dedicated to that project.

The withdrawal protocol — architect certifies physical percentage, engineer certifies cost incurred, CA cross-verifies — is drafted into a board policy so the finance and site teams use the same template from day one.

Step 4: Portal Application and Fee Payment (3-5 days)

Project, financial, approval and developer data is uploaded to the State RERA portal, the fee is paid online, and the pending-litigation and past-project declarations are filed in the prescribed annexures. Any document gap surfaced by the portal's own validation is closed before submission to avoid a return-without-action.

Step 5: Authority Review and Registration Number (15-30 days)

The State RERA scrutinises the application; same-day responses to authority queries keep the clock moving. The project registration number is issued and immediately published on the State RERA public dashboard, after which the project is legally launchable — advertising can begin, channel partners can list, and bookings can be accepted.

Step 6: Live Compliance Calendar (Ongoing)

QPR is filed every quarter within the State cut-off, carrying physical progress, financial progress, sale and inventory updates, and plan modifications. The 70% account is operated strictly against joint certifications, and a structural-defect register opens on the date of first possession and runs for five years.

A Real Example: Bengaluru Project, ₹120 Crore Cost

Take a residential project in Bengaluru — 60 apartments across two wings, estimated cost ₹120 crore, land cost ₹35 crore, construction cost ₹70 crore, the balance for approvals, taxes, marketing and overheads.

• Launch quarter: Developer collects ₹6 crore as booking money across 40 allottees. Of this, ₹4.2 crore (70%) is deposited into the K-RERA project account; ₹1.8 crore remains free for marketing, brokerage and working capital.
• Six-month review: Architect certifies 22% physical completion. Engineer certifies ₹26.4 crore construction cost incurred, item-wise. CA reconciles vendor payments, sales receipts and bank statements, then signs the joint certificate.
• Permitted withdrawal: With ₹14 crore now cumulative in the 70% account, the maximum withdrawal that quarter is 22% of ₹14 crore = ₹3.08 crore, against actual construction expenditure documented.
• QPR filing: Within 15 days of quarter-end, the QPR is filed on the K-RERA portal with the 22% certification, an updated sales-and-inventory table, and a declaration of any plan modifications.
• Dashboard impact: K-RERA publishes the QPR. Prospective buyers, channel partners and banks see a project on schedule with audit-grade certifications, and the next quarter's allottee cheques continue to flow with full legal cover.

The discipline scales — the same protocol works for a 300-apartment township as for an 18-unit boutique build. What changes is volume of paperwork, not the underlying compliance loop.

What Backs Up Each 70% Withdrawal

Every withdrawal from the 70% project account needs a three-signature trail. Building this into your monthly close cycle from project launch saves audit time, AO-notice exposure and bank-loan friction later.

• Architect certificate: Building and wing-wise physical percentage completion against the approved plan, supported by site photographs and measurement-book extracts for the period.
• Engineer certificate: Cost incurred against estimated cost, item-wise across excavation, RCC, masonry, finishes and services; backed by vendor running-account bills and reconciled with the project ledger.
• CA certificate: Bank-statement reconciliation of the 70% account, cross-tally with sales data, and a positive confirmation that the withdrawal does not exceed the certified completion percentage.
• Joint promoter declaration: Sign-off that the withdrawal is for land cost and construction only — not for working capital, dividends, group-company transfers or unrelated outflows.
• Quarterly self-certification: Promoter affirms that 70% discipline has been maintained for the full quarter, with no leakage, side-account or unrecorded receipts — annexed to the QPR for that period.

Where It Goes Wrong

Five patterns account for almost every State RERA show-cause notice, AO refund order and deregistration proceeding we see across States. Avoid these and the registration runs clean.

• Launching before number issuance: Pre-launch teasers, EOI campaigns, soft-launch dinners and channel-partner previews — all count as advertising under Section 3 and trigger penalty exposure.
• Carpet-area mismatch: Brochure carpet differs from RERA-filed carpet by even 2% — that is a buyer complaint, an AO refund order with prescribed-rate interest, and a published consumer notice on the dashboard.
• Skipping QPRs after launch: Two quarters missed and the State RERA opens a suo-motu file. Persistent default triggers deregistration proceedings and a freeze on further sales.
• 70% account leakage: Using the account for working capital, paying group-company invoices, or transferring out without joint certification — penalty up to 5% of project cost, plus deregistration exposure.
• Possession-date slippage without intimation: Agreement-for-sale possession date and QPR possession date diverge — allottees become entitled to refund with interest under Section 18, on demand.
• Unregistered brokers: Brokerage paid to an agent without a valid registration number is disallowed from the 70% account and exposes the developer to joint action under Section 9.
• Agreement-for-sale dilution: Defect-liability clause trimmed below five years, or carpet-area clause left vague — the State's model agreement overrides anything diluted, and the dilution itself is a complaint trigger.

What You Receive at the End

• State RERA project registration number, with the public-dashboard URL for verification
• Certified copy of the registration certificate, in PDF and physical form
• 70% project bank-account opening kit and the bank's RERA-escrow acknowledgment letter
• Architect, engineer and CA certification format templates ready for the first withdrawal cycle
• RERA-compliant allotment letter, agreement for sale and possession letter drafts in your State-prescribed model
• QPR filing calendar and reminder system covering the project tenure
• Defect-liability register template and a possession-day handover protocol
• Agent-verification checklist for channel partners and brokerage payments
• Standard advertisement-disclosure format with registration number and QR code
• Compliance handover document for the project finance, sales and legal teams

How to Get Started

Share the project name, land location, total area, apartment count and estimated launch date. Within two working days we confirm the applicable State RERA, the fee structure, and the document checklist tailored to that authority's portal. A preliminary call walks through which approvals are already in hand, which are pending, and the realistic registration window given current State turnaround.

From there, document collection, 70% bank-account setup and portal application happen in parallel where possible to compress the timeline. Once the registration number is issued, your QPR calendar, certification templates and agent-verification process are configured so the project stays compliant from launch through possession and into the five-year defect-liability period.