Priya and Arjun chose their Pune flat partly on the strength of a floor plan with a generous balcony, a loft over the passage and a cupboard drawn into every bedroom wall. When they sat down to work out which of those they were paying for, the answer was in a chapter neither of them had read.
Key takeaways
- A balcony is 1.0 m to 2.0 m wide, on any floor except the ground floor, and nothing may go beyond its outer edge.
- A cupboard may project 0.60 m, on one wall of each room only, and not on the ground floor.
- A loft is capped at 1.5 m in height, covering 25 percent of a kitchen or habitable room but 100 percent of a bathroom, water closet or corridor.
- A mezzanine may take up to 50 percent of the room's carpet area, is expressly counted in FSI, and cannot coexist with a loft in the same room.
- A stilt must be open on at least two sides and used only for parking or as a children's play area. Any habitable part of it is counted in FSI.
- Under Regulation 6.6, the balcony and the cupboard are both inside the measured periphery, so both are area someone paid for.
Why this is a money question
Regulation 6.6 computes built up area on the outer periphery of the construction, floor by floor, and says in terms that the open balcony, double height terraces and the cupboard are included in that periphery irrespective of use or function.
So these are not free additions to a flat. They are measured area, and area that is measured is area that was priced. The rules below decide how much of each one a builder may give you, which means they also decide how much of it you can be charged for.
The balcony
Chapter 9, Regulation 9.14, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025 sets the dimensions first: minimum width 1.0 m, maximum 2.0 m, permitted in residential and other buildings on any floor except the ground floor. The width is measured perpendicular to the building, up to the outermost edge of the balcony, and nothing at all may be built beyond that edge.
Then the conditions that protect the neighbours' light.
Banded by building height and area type
- Non-congested, up to 24.0 m heightNo balcony may reduce the marginal open space, including the front, to less than 2.0 m
- Non-congested, 24.0 m and aboveNot less than 6.0 m on the first floor and 4.5 m on upper floors
- Congested areaPermitted on upper floors projecting into front setbacks, but not over lanes 4.50 m wide or less, and subject to 1.0 m clear from the plot boundary to the external face
Source: Chapter 9, Regulation 9.14, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025
Two further clauses matter to a buyer more than the dimensions do.
A balcony may be enclosed, but only at the right moment. Regulation 9.14(iv) allows a balcony to be enclosed in the room at the time of development permission, if the owner or developer desires it, and then caps the depth of that enclosed balcony at one third of the depth of the room, counting the balcony's own depth. That is a design stage decision recorded in the sanctioned plan, not something that can be tidied up later.
A ground floor balcony is possible but different. It is allowed where it is not a cantilever, and only after leaving the required setback and marginal distances.
Chapter 9, Regulation 9.15, Supported Double Height Terraces is one line and worth knowing because it sounds like a luxury and is a defined thing: supported double height terraces, meaning open terraces with a railing and a minimum height equal to two floors, are permitted within the building line. Not beyond it.
The cupboard
Chapter 9, Regulation 9.6, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025 is the smallest provision here and the one most often exceeded on a drawing.
In residential buildings, cantilever projections of cupboards at floor to floor level may be permitted, except on the ground floor. The projection, excluding the window area, may extend up to 0.60 m into the setbacks. The window frame must be placed on the inner side of the wall. And the limit people miss: such a cupboard is allowed only on one wall of each room.
For a special building the projection must stay at least 6.0 m from the plot boundary. Above 24.0 m of building height, no cupboard may reduce the marginal open space to less than 6.0 m on the first floor and 4.5 m on upper floors. In a congested area a cupboard may project into front setbacks on upper floors, except over lanes 4.50 m or narrower, subject to 1.0 m clear from the plot boundary.
A plan showing built in cupboards on two or three walls of the same bedroom is showing something Regulation 9.6.1 does not permit. That matters twice over: the drawing may not survive sanction, and every one of those cupboards is inside the measured area under Regulation 6.6, so they were priced into what you are paying per square foot.
Names and numbers in this story are illustrative. When Priya and Arjun set the marketing floor plan against the sanctioned one, the discrepancy was not in the rooms. It was that the brochure had drawn wardrobes along two walls of the master bedroom and the sanctioned plan had one.
The loft, and the surprising bathroom rule
Chapter 9, Regulation 9.5, Ledge or Tand / Loft allows lofts over a kitchen, habitable rooms, bathrooms, water closets and the corridor within a tenement in a residential building, and over shops and in industrial buildings.
| Room the loft sits over | Maximum coverage, as a percentage of the room below |
|---|---|
| Kitchen or habitable room | 25 percent |
| Bathroom, water closet or corridor | 100 percent |
| Shop up to 3.0 m wide | 33 percent |
| Shop more than 3.0 m wide | 50 percent |
| Industrial | 33 percent |
Four restrictions travel with it: clear head room under the loft of at least 2.1 m, a maximum loft height of 1.5 m, a 2.0 m clearance from the entrance in commercial and industrial buildings, and an absolute requirement that the loft must not interfere with the room's ventilation.
The 25 percent against 100 percent split is the practical point. A loft can cover a whole passage or a bathroom, and only a quarter of a bedroom. A floor plan promising extensive storage over living areas is promising something the table does not allow.
The same regulation also sizes the air conditioning ledge: on the exterior wall of a room, not exceeding 0.5 m by 1.0 m.
The mezzanine
Chapter 9, Regulation 9.7, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025* is the one provision in this group that states its FSI position outright.
The aggregate area of a mezzanine floor shall in no case exceed 50 percent of the carpet area of that room or shop. Head room under it must be at least 2.1 m. If it is used as a habitable room it must meet living room standards for lighting and ventilation. And where a loft is provided in a room, a mezzanine floor is not allowed in that room at all: they are alternatives, not additions.
Then the note, in the regulation's own words: mezzanine floor area shall be counted towards FSI.
That makes the mezzanine the clearest case in this article. It is measured, it is counted, it consumes the project's development potential, and it is therefore unambiguously something the buyer is paying for. A duplex marketed as having a "free" mezzanine is describing an area that cost the builder FSI, and builders do not absorb FSI.
The stilt, and the line it must not cross
Chapter 9, Regulation 9.16, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025 permits a stilt with one or more levels underneath a building, at least 2.4 m from the floor to the soffit of the beam, or a clear 4.50 m for stack parking. At least two sides of the stilt must be open.
Then the use restriction: the open stilt portion shall not be used for any purpose other than parking of vehicles or a play area for children. Habitable use may be allowed in part of the stilt, and that part shall be counted in FSI.
This is the same hinge that runs through the FSI exclusion rules, where a stilt or podium is outside FSI only while it is used exclusively for parking. A society that later encloses part of its stilt for a gym or an office has not found free space; it has occupied space that was exempted on a condition it is no longer meeting.
What to check on your own plan
- Get the sanctioned plan, not the marketing floor plan, and compare the two room by room.
- Count the cupboard walls. One per room, projecting no more than 0.60 m, and none on the ground floor.
- Measure the balcony perpendicular to the building, to its outermost edge, and check it against the 1.0 to 2.0 m range.
- Check whether any balcony is shown as enclosed, and if so whether it stays within one third of the room's depth.
- Ask what the stilt is sanctioned for, because parking and a children's play area are the only uses permitted without FSI being charged.
Where the filings come in
None of these dimensions appear in the public register: MahaRERA records buildings, floors and units, not room level measurements, and the carpet area field in the data is empty on every project. So the sanctioned plan is the document that answers these questions, and a buyer is entitled to see it.
What the register does show, free, is the project's own account of itself: the filed land area, the buildings and their floor counts, the promoter's extensions with the reasons given, the certifying architect and engineer, and any complaints or litigation with case numbers. That is all readable at reragenie.com without an account.
ReraGenie's buyer report, Rs 499, reads one project's full filing and the documents behind it, sets the promoter's record against the rest of the register, compares the possession slip with the median for the same pincode, and states plainly what the filings do not contain. It includes a project watch for 90 days, so a change reaches you by email rather than by rumour.
For the wider question of what in a project was never saleable at all, see the parts that were never the builder's to sell.
Source: Unified Development Control and Promotion Regulations for Maharashtra, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025. Sanctioned under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966.
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