Builder buyer agreement — what RERA already gives you, and the clauses still worth fighting over

The most important document you will sign before the deed

When a flat is bought ready, the sale deed is the document that matters, and it is signed on the day the money changes hands. When a flat is bought under construction, the money changes hands over three, four or sometimes eight years, and for all of that time the only thing standing between the buyer and the builder is the agreement for sale. The conveyance deed comes at the very end, if it comes at all.

That makes the builder buyer agreement the document that decides what happens in every situation a buyer actually worries about. If the building is late, the agreement says what the builder pays. If the buyer is late with an instalment, the agreement says what the buyer pays. If the buyer wants out, it says what is forfeited. If the tower is redesigned, it says whether the buyer was asked. If the flat is smaller than promised, it says how area is measured and what is refunded.

Before 2016 these questions were answered almost entirely by the builder’s own draft, and the drafts were what one would expect: generous to the party that wrote them. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 — RERA — changed the position in a way that is still not widely understood. It did not simply regulate the agreement. It wrote a set of rights directly into the statute, so that a buyer has them whatever the agreement says.

If, instead, you own the plot and are hiring someone to build on it, you are not a buyer under RERA at all — you are an owner hiring a contractor, and the document you need is different; our construction contractor agreement guide covers it.

Application, allotment letter, agreement for sale — not the same

A booking usually produces three documents in sequence, and buyers often treat them as one.

The application form is the buyer’s offer. It is filled in at the site office or online, signed with a cheque for the booking amount, and frequently carries a set of printed “terms and conditions” on the reverse in small type. Those terms are often more one-sided than the eventual agreement, because they are written before any regulator has looked at anything.

The allotment letter is the builder’s acceptance. It identifies the unit — tower, floor, number — records the price and the payment plan, and asks for the next instalment. It creates a binding relationship, but it is not the agreement for sale the Act contemplates, and it should not be allowed to become one by the builder simply never issuing the full agreement.

The agreement for sale is the full contract, in the form the State’s rules prescribe, which Section 13 requires to be entered into and registered before the builder takes more than ten per cent of the cost. It is the document this page is about. When it arrives, it supersedes the terms on the back of the application to the extent they differ, and buyers should check that it says so.

First check: is the project registered?

Section 3 of the Act requires a promoter to register a real estate project with the State’s Regulatory Authority before advertising, marketing, booking or selling any unit in it, subject to exceptions for small projects — broadly, where the land does not exceed five hundred square metres or the number of apartments does not exceed eight — and for projects that had received completion certificates before the Act came into force. Ongoing projects without a completion certificate had to be registered too.

For a buyer, registration is the first check and the easiest. Every State authority has a portal on which the project can be looked up by name or registration number. The entry shows the promoter, the approvals, the sanctioned plan, the number of units, the declared date of completion, and quarterly updates on construction and on money received. It is the single best source of information about a project that the builder’s brochure will not give you.

In the National Capital Region the check has a trap in it. A buyer living in Delhi is often buying outside Delhi. A project in Noida, Greater Noida or Ghaziabad is registered with UP RERA. A project in Gurugram is registered with the Haryana authority at Gurugram, which is a separate authority from the one at Panchkula for the rest of Haryana. A project inside Delhi is registered with the Delhi authority. Looking on the wrong portal produces a false “not registered”.

The ten per cent line

Section 13(1) is the provision most buyers have heard of: a promoter cannot accept more than ten per cent of the cost of the apartment, plot or building as an advance or an application fee without first entering into a written agreement for sale and registering it. We set out its text and what it means for a title check on our property title verification guide, and how it fits into an ordinary agreement to sell on our sale agreement guide, so we will not repeat that here.

What matters on this page is how the line is crossed in practice. The booking amount is often small. Then a “first instalment within thirty days” is demanded before any agreement has been issued, and together the two exceed ten per cent. Sometimes the agreement is issued but not registered, and the builder treats the signed copy as sufficient. Sometimes the ten per cent is calculated on the basic price alone, leaving out charges that are in truth part of the cost.

The buyer’s position in each case is simple. Payment beyond ten per cent can be withheld until a registered agreement is offered, and a builder who insists otherwise is in breach of the Act rather than the buyer being in breach of the allotment. If the money has already been paid, the record of it — dates, receipts, the absence of a registered agreement — is itself material for a complaint.

Registration also protects the buyer in a way that is easy to overlook: a registered agreement is a public record. If the builder later sells the same unit twice, or mortgages the project without disclosure, the buyer with a registered agreement is in a far stronger position than one holding a receipt.

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The model agreement in your State’s rules

Section 13(2) goes further than requiring an agreement. It requires the agreement to be in the form prescribed by the rules, and to specify particulars including the development of the project, the specifications and internal development works, the dates and manner of payments, the date of possession, the rates of interest payable by the promoter to the allottee and by the allottee to the promoter in case of default, and other particulars the rules require.

Each State’s rules therefore contain a model agreement for sale, usually as an annexure. It is the most useful document a buyer can read before signing, because it shows what the regulator thinks a fair agreement looks like. The model forms broadly follow the same shape: carpet area and price, payment plan linked to construction, possession date and consequences of delay, defect liability, cancellation on either side and its financial consequences, and the buyer’s right to information.

Builders are entitled to fill in project-specific particulars, and many add schedules describing the unit, the specifications and the payment plan. What the model form does not permit is a clause that dilutes the rights the Act gives. Where a builder’s draft departs from the model on possession, interest, cancellation or alterations, the departure is exactly where attention should go. The rules and model forms of several States provide, in substance, that a clause contrary to the Act, the rules or the model form does not bind the allottee.

Carpet area, and the super area habit

For decades flats in North India were sold on super area — a figure that included the flat, its walls, a share of the staircases, lobbies, lift shafts, the clubhouse and sometimes the swimming pool. The gap between super area and what a family could actually use was called “loading”, and it commonly ran to thirty or forty per cent. Two flats with the same super area could differ in usable space by a room.

The Act defines the measure that now matters.

The model agreements in the State rules require the price to be stated for the carpet area so defined, with balconies and terraces, where they are exclusive to the flat, stated separately. That is the figure a buyer should compare between projects, and the figure against which the final flat should be measured.

Two points follow. First, an agreement that states only super area, or states the price per square foot of super area, is out of step with the Act; the buyer should ask for the carpet area and the price per square foot of carpet area in writing. Second, the model agreements generally provide for what happens if the carpet area on completion differs from what was agreed — a refund with interest if it is smaller beyond a small tolerance, and a limited charge if it is larger. A draft that allows the builder to vary the area freely without any such adjustment should be corrected.

What the price actually includes

The number on the brochure is almost never the number a buyer pays. The agreement is where the full cost has to be written down, and a buyer should not sign until every component is stated in rupees rather than described.

The clause to look for is the one that allows the builder to add charges later — “any other charges as may be levied” — without limit or proof. Increases in charges genuinely imposed by a government authority after the agreement can reasonably be passed on, with the demand produced. Anything else should be in the price now.

Payment plans, and the one to be careful with

The payment plan decides how much of the buyer’s money is with the builder at any moment, and therefore how much is at risk if the project stalls. There are three broad kinds.

A construction-linked plan ties each instalment to a stage — foundation, each slab, brickwork, plaster, finishing, possession. It is the plan the model agreements assume, and the one that most closely matches what the buyer pays to what the builder has built. The buyer should check that each demand letter corresponds to a stage actually reached, and the quarterly updates on the RERA portal help with exactly that.

A down-payment plan collects most of the price early in exchange for a discount. Before RERA, this was where buyers lost most money in stalled projects. The ten per cent rule and the requirement that the promoter keep a large share of collections in a separate account for that project reduce the risk, but a buyer paying ninety per cent upfront has still placed ninety per cent of the price in a project that does not yet exist.

The plan to be most careful with is the subvention plan, under which the buyer takes a home loan, the bank disburses to the builder early, and the builder promises to pay the pre-EMI interest until possession. When the project runs late and the builder stops paying, the bank turns to the borrower — who is, after all, the one who signed the loan. We come back to this under home loans below.

The possession date, the grace period and force majeure

Every agreement names a date, or a period from a starting event, by which possession is to be handed over. Three details around that date decide whether it means anything.

The first is the starting event. A period of “forty-two months from the date of this agreement” is clear. A period of “forty-two months from the start of construction of the tower” or “from the receipt of all approvals” is not, because the buyer has no way of knowing when that event occurs. The date should be a date.

The second is the grace period. Many agreements add six months, sometimes twelve, after the possession date before any consequence follows. A reasonable grace period is common, but it should be a fixed period, and it should not be layered on top of a second extension for “reasons beyond control”.

The third is force majeure. The Act itself recognises force majeure for the limited purpose of extending a project’s registration, and Section 6 defines it narrowly: war, flood, drought, fire, cyclone, earthquake or any other calamity caused by nature affecting the regular development of the project. During the pandemic, State authorities issued general extensions of timelines, and those orders apply according to their terms. What the Act does not recognise as force majeure is the builder’s own difficulties — a shortage of funds, a dispute with a contractor, slow sales, or a delay in approvals the builder should have obtained earlier. An agreement whose force majeure clause includes those should be narrowed.

Write down, next to the agreement, the date on which possession becomes late on the agreement’s own terms. That is the date from which the next section begins to operate.

On delay: Section 18 and your choice

This is the provision that most changes the balance between builder and buyer, and it is worth reading in full.

Three things about that text are routinely missed. The first is that the choice belongs to the allottee. The section says “in case the allottee wishes to withdraw” and “where an allottee does not intend to withdraw”. An agreement cannot convert that into the builder’s option — for instance, by offering a different flat in another project instead of a refund, or by allowing the buyer to cancel only on forfeiture.

The second is that the refund is of the amount received, with interest, including compensation. It is not the amount received less forfeiture, less taxes, less brokerage. The Supreme Court in Newtech Promoters and Developers v. State of U.P. (2021) described the right to a refund on failure to give possession within the stipulated time as unconditional, not dependent on unforeseen events or stay orders that were not attributable to the allottee.

The third is that the buyer who stays is not left without a remedy. Interest runs for every month of delay until possession is handed over — which means a valid offer of possession, with the occupancy certificate, not a letter inviting the buyer to pay the final instalment for a flat that cannot yet lawfully be occupied.

The last row answers a common worry. Buyers are often told that by accepting possession they give up any claim for delay. The Supreme Court rejected that argument in Wg. Cdr. Arifur Rahman Khan v. DLF Southern Homes (2020): flat buyers who took possession were not thereby disentitled from compensation for the delay. A buyer who has waited years is not required to refuse the flat in order to keep the claim alive.

Interest must be equal both ways

Before RERA, the most characteristic feature of builder agreements in the NCR was an asymmetry. If the buyer paid late, interest ran at eighteen or twenty-four per cent a year, compounded, and after a few defaults the builder could cancel and forfeit. If the builder handed over late, it paid compensation at a fixed rate per square foot per month — five rupees, ten rupees — which on a typical flat worked out to a small fraction of what the buyer was paying in rent and loan interest while waiting.

The Act ends that asymmetry by definition. Section 2(za) defines “interest” as the rates of interest payable by the promoter or the allottee, and its explanation provides that the rate chargeable from the allottee by the promoter in case of default shall be equal to the rate of interest which the promoter shall be liable to pay the allottee in case of default. It also fixes when interest runs: from the promoter, from the date it received the money until it is refunded; from the allottee, from the date of default until payment.

The rate itself is set by each State’s rules, and in many States it is linked to the State Bank of India’s highest marginal cost of lending rate plus two per cent. The exact rule is in your State’s notification, and it changes when the benchmark changes. What does not change is the principle: whatever the rate, it is the same in both directions.

When reading the draft, find both interest clauses — one usually sits in the payment section, the other in the possession section — and compare them side by side. If they differ, the Act governs, and the buyer should ask for the draft to be corrected before signing, so that the agreement does not need to be argued with later. Also check that the buyer’s default interest is simple interest for the period of actual delay, not compounded, and not triggered by a demand letter the buyer may not have received.

One-sided clauses the courts will not enforce

A builder buyer agreement is a standard form. The buyer does not draft it and, for most of the clauses, cannot change it. The law has long recognised that a person who signs a form of this kind does not agree to every term in the sense that two negotiating parties do.

The leading decision is Pioneer Urban Land and Infrastructure Ltd. v. Govindan Raghavan, decided by the Supreme Court on 2 April 2019. The agreement in that case charged the buyer interest at eighteen per cent for delay in payment and allowed the builder to cancel for a delay of a few months, while the builder’s liability for its own delay was limited to a small amount per square foot. The Court held that the terms were wholly one-sided and unfair to the buyer, that the buyer could not be bound by them, and that the use of such terms amounted to an unfair trade practice. It also affirmed that a buyer cannot be made to wait indefinitely for possession and is entitled to a refund with compensation after an unreasonable delay.

The Court applied the same approach in IREO Grace Realtech v. Abhishek Khanna (2021), in which it again declined to enforce one-sided terms and upheld a refund with interest. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 now expressly treats an unfair contract — one containing terms that cause significant change in the rights of the consumer, such as excessive security deposits, disproportionate penalties or unilateral termination — as something a consumer commission can declare null and void.

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Cancellation and forfeiture

Every agreement deals with cancellation twice: cancellation by the builder, usually for the buyer’s default in payment, and cancellation by the buyer, usually because circumstances have changed. In both cases the question is what the builder may keep.

The general law was settled long before RERA. In Maula Bux v. Union of India (1969) the Supreme Court held that forfeiture of a reasonable sum paid as earnest money to secure performance is permissible, but that where the amount forfeited goes beyond that and is in the nature of a penalty, it can be retained only to the extent of the loss actually suffered, under Section 74 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. A builder that forfeits a large share of the price must therefore justify it as real loss, which is rarely possible where the flat can be resold.

Consumer commissions have for years treated around ten per cent of the basic sale price as a reasonable earnest amount in flat cases, and several State RERA authorities have since framed regulations fixing a ceiling of about that order on what a promoter may forfeit when an allottee withdraws. The figure differs by State and by the stage of the project, so check your State’s regulation rather than assuming it.

Three things should never be forfeited, and a draft that forfeits them should be corrected: taxes the builder has paid over to the government on the buyer’s behalf and can recover; brokerage paid by the buyer to a third party; and interest the buyer paid to a bank. The agreement should also fix a time limit for the refund after cancellation, and interest if it is exceeded. A clause that returns the balance “on resale of the unit” leaves the buyer waiting on an event the builder controls.

Where the builder cancels for the buyer’s default, the model agreements generally require notice and an opportunity to pay before cancellation. A cancellation without notice, or one triggered by a small or disputed delay, is open to challenge.

Changes to the plan and specifications

Buyers are often told that the layout “may change” and that the builder reserves the right to alter plans. The Act narrows that right considerably.

Section 14(1) requires the project to be developed and completed in accordance with the sanctioned plans, layout plans and specifications as approved by the competent authorities. Section 14(2) then provides that, after the plans and specifications are disclosed, the promoter shall not make any additions or alterations in the sanctioned plans, layout plans and specifications and the nature of fixtures, fittings and amenities described in respect of the apartment, plot or building that has been agreed to be taken, without the previous consent of that person — save for minor additions or alterations permitted by the Act. For other alterations or additions in the sanctioned plans of the building or the common areas, the promoter needs the previous written consent of at least two-thirds of the allottees, other than the promoter.

In practice the problem appears in two forms. One is a clause in which the buyer consents, in advance, to any changes the builder may make in future. That clause is an attempt to collect the consent Section 14 requires before the buyer knows what it is consenting to, and should be removed or confined to changes required by the authorities. The other is a change the buyer discovers only at possession: a smaller balcony, a relocated tower, a reduced park, an extra floor.

The protection is in the documents. Keep the brochure, the sanctioned plan the builder displayed or uploaded to the RERA portal, and the specifications schedule attached to the agreement. If the finished flat does not match them, those three are the evidence.

Five years of defect liability

A flat bought from a developer comes with a statutory guarantee that most buyers never use, because they do not know it exists.

The provision is wider than its first words suggest. It is not limited to structural defects. It covers defects in workmanship and quality, defects in the provision of services, and failure in any other obligation of the promoter under the agreement for sale. Seepage, cracks in plaster, faulty wiring, a lift that does not work, a promised amenity that was never built: all of these can fall within it.

The five years run from the date possession is handed over, and the thirty days run from the date the defect is brought to the promoter’s notice. Both dates have to be proved, which is why the notice should be in writing — an email, a letter, a complaint logged on the builder’s portal — with photographs and a date. A telephone call to the site engineer is not notice.

Parking, common areas and what you are paying for

Parking has been one of the most argued questions in Indian housing, and the Act answers most of it through definitions.

Section 2(n) defines common areas to include, among other things, the entire land for the project, the staircases, lifts, lobbies, fire escapes and entrances, the common basements, terraces, parks, play areas, open parking areas and common storage spaces, and the premises for the lodging of persons employed for the management of the property. Section 2(y) separately defines a garage as a place within a project having a roof and walls on three sides for parking any vehicle, and says it does not include an unenclosed or uncovered parking space such as open parking areas.

The effect is that a covered garage, as so defined, may be allotted to a buyer as part of the transaction, and its price stated. Open parking is a common area, which will vest in the association with the rest of the common areas, and is not the builder’s to sell as a separate asset. The Supreme Court held something similar before RERA, in Nahalchand Laloochand v. Panchali Co-operative Housing Society (2010), treating stilt parking in a building as part of the common areas rather than a separately saleable flat.

When reading the agreement, find out exactly what the parking charge is for: a specific numbered covered garage, a right to use a space, or simply a promise. A “car parking right” sold for several lakh rupees without any identified space is an invitation to a dispute at possession.

Holding charges and maintenance before possession

Two kinds of charge appear at the end of a project and are often confused.

Holding charges are amounts some builders have demanded from buyers who did not take possession immediately after an offer — framed as a charge for “holding” the flat. In DLF Home Developers v. Capital Greens Flat Buyers Association (2020), the Supreme Court upheld the view of the National Consumer Commission that the developer could not levy holding charges on the buyers in that case. The decision is now widely relied on where a buyer is asked to pay for the builder’s own delay in completing the formalities.

Maintenance charges are different. Once a valid offer of possession has been made, with the occupancy certificate, the building has to be maintained, and a buyer who does not take possession is ordinarily liable for maintenance from a reasonable period after the offer. What a buyer should resist is maintenance demanded before a valid offer, or for a period in which the common facilities did not exist.

Selling or transferring before possession

The usual method is endorsement or nomination: the builder records the new buyer in place of the original allottee on the same agreement, and the new buyer steps into the original buyer’s shoes. Builders commonly charge a transfer fee for this, and many require all dues to be cleared first. The fee is a commercial term, but it should be fixed in the agreement, not “as applicable at the time”, and the builder’s consent should not be capable of being refused without reason.

The buyer taking the transfer should insist on two things. First, that the endorsement expressly transfers all the original allottee’s rights, including accrued delay interest and claims, unless the parties have agreed otherwise and priced it. Second, that the builder confirms in writing the amount received to date and the dues outstanding, so there is no argument later about what was paid by whom.

Occupancy certificate, possession and the conveyance deed

The occupancy certificate — called a completion or occupation certificate in some places — is issued by the local authority or development authority after inspection, and certifies that the building has been constructed in accordance with the sanctioned plan and is fit for occupation. Until it is issued, the building cannot lawfully be occupied, and consumer commissions have repeatedly held that an “offer of possession” made without it is not a valid offer. A buyer who receives such an offer should ask, in writing, for a copy of the certificate before paying the final instalment.

Once a valid certificate has been issued, the obligation moves to the buyer.

The conveyance deed is the document that actually transfers ownership. Section 17 requires the promoter to execute a registered conveyance deed in favour of the allottee, along with the undivided proportionate title in the common areas to the association of allottees, and to hand over physical possession; where no local law fixes a period, this is to be done within three months from the date of issue of the occupancy certificate. Section 11(4)(f) separately makes execution of the registered conveyance deed one of the promoter’s duties.

The point to hold on to is that until the conveyance deed is registered, the buyer owns a contract, not a flat. A buyer who has taken possession and moved in, but whose conveyance deed has not been executed, cannot sell cleanly, cannot always mortgage, and is exposed if the builder’s own title or finances go wrong. Stamp duty on the deed is the buyer’s cost and is often the reason buyers delay; it is rarely a good reason. Our conveyance deed guide explains the four kinds of conveyance, and our conveyance deed service covers the drafting and registration.

Home loans, tripartite agreements and subvention

Most under-construction flats are bought with a home loan, and the loan brings a third document into the transaction: the tripartite agreement between the buyer, the builder and the bank.

The tripartite agreement usually provides that the bank will disburse the loan directly to the builder in stages, that the builder will not transfer the flat to anybody else without the bank’s consent, that the builder will note the bank’s interest in its records, and that on cancellation any refund will go to the bank first. It is not a formality. It decides where the money goes if the project fails, and it is often the only document in which the builder undertakes anything directly to the bank. Read it with the same care as the agreement.

A subvention arrangement adds a further promise: the builder will pay the interest, or pre-EMI, on the buyer’s loan until possession, and the buyer pays nothing until then. The bank, meanwhile, disburses most of the loan to the builder early — sometimes far ahead of construction. When the project runs late and the builder stops paying the interest, the bank turns to the borrower, who signed the loan agreement, and the buyer finds that the promise of “no EMI till possession” was the builder’s alone. Such schemes in the NCR have drawn close scrutiny from the courts in recent years.

If you take a subvention plan, three checks help. See whether the bank’s own documents record the subvention, or whether only the builder’s letter does. Find out how much the bank is disbursing and when, against the construction stage. And diarise the date on which the builder’s interest obligation is due each month, so that a missed payment is noticed immediately rather than when the bank’s recovery letter arrives. Our home loan documentation service reads the loan papers alongside the agreement, and our home loan guide explains the Reserve Bank rules that protect you.

RERA or the consumer commission

When things go wrong, a buyer has more than one forum, and the choice is a real one.

Under Section 31, a complaint can be filed with the Regulatory Authority or the adjudicating officer for any violation of the Act, the rules or the regulations. The Authority can direct refund and interest, and impose penalties. Compensation is for the adjudicating officer under Sections 71 and 72, who considers factors including the amount of disproportionate gain or unfair advantage made by the promoter, the amount of loss caused, and the repetitive nature of the default. The Supreme Court settled this division of work in Newtech (2021). An appeal lies to the Appellate Tribunal, and a promoter appealing must first deposit at least thirty per cent of the penalty, or the total amount to be paid to the allottee including interest and compensation, as the proviso to Section 43(5) requires.

The consumer commissions under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 remain available. In Imperia Structures v. Anil Patni (2020) the Supreme Court held that the Act does not bar a consumer complaint: Section 79 bars the jurisdiction of civil courts, and a consumer commission is not a civil court for that purpose, while Section 88 says RERA is in addition to, not in derogation of, other laws. The consumer route may be preferred where the buyer wants the commission’s wider powers on compensation and unfair contract terms, or where the project or the claim sits better there.

What a buyer should not do is file in both places on the same facts and ask for the same relief. The choice depends on what is being claimed, the amount, how quickly each forum is moving in the State concerned, and whether other buyers in the project have already chosen a forum. That is a decision to make with an advocate — engaged and paid by you directly — and our find an advocate page lists advocates who handle real estate matters. What we prepare is the documentation: the chronology, the payment record, the notice, and the complaint papers through our RERA complaint filing service.

Builder delaying? Start with a proper notice for delay

When the builder is insolvent

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 was amended in 2018 to provide, through an explanation to Section 5(8)(f), that any amount raised from an allottee under a real estate project is treated as having the commercial effect of a borrowing. Allottees are therefore financial creditors of the developer. The Supreme Court upheld the amendment in Pioneer Urban Land and Infrastructure Ltd. v. Union of India (2019). As financial creditors, homebuyers take part in the committee of creditors through an authorised representative, and vote on the resolution plan for the company.

A further amendment in 2020 added a threshold: an application by allottees to start the insolvency process against a developer must be filed jointly by at least one hundred allottees of the same project or ten per cent of the total number of allottees of that project, whichever is less. The Supreme Court upheld the threshold in Manish Kumar v. Union of India (2021).

The file you should keep from day one

Almost every successful claim against a builder is won on paper that the buyer collected years earlier. Almost every weak one fails for lack of it. The file is not complicated; it only has to be started early.

Keep the brochure and advertisements as they were when you booked, including screenshots of the website. Section 12 of the Act makes the promoter liable to compensate a person who makes an advance or deposit on the basis of information in a notice, advertisement or prospectus that turns out to be incorrect, and that claim is impossible to prove if the brochure has been thrown away.

Keep every receipt, with the date, amount and mode of payment, and every demand letter, with the construction stage it claims. Keep the allotment letter, the registered agreement, the tripartite agreement and any addendum. Keep a copy of the RERA registration page for the project as it stood when you booked, including the declared completion date.

Keep all correspondence in writing — emails rather than calls, and a written summary of any meeting sent back to the builder the same day. And keep a short chronology : one line for each payment, each demand, each promised date and each missed one. A two-page chronology with the documents behind it is worth more to an advocate, or to an adjudicating officer, than a year of phone calls.

What we do, and what it costs

Builder buyer agreement review or drafting is ₹4,500 and ordinarily takes 2 – 5 days. The work is documentation: reading what the builder has given you against the Act, the rules and the model agreement, and telling you in writing what the documents mean and what to ask for.

Stamp duty, registration fees and any government charges are at actuals. Nothing is payable in advance. We do not arrange loans, we are not brokers, and we do not advise on whether a particular project is a good investment. Complaints before the Authority or a consumer commission, appeals and insolvency proceedings are for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it.