Builder company directors check: who is behind the promoter, from MahaRERA to the MCA

The name on a MahaRERA registration is often not the name on the hoarding. A tower sold under a familiar brand is commonly registered by a partnership firm or a company that exists for that one project, and the people who answer for your money are the partners or directors behind it. A builder company directors check takes the name back one layer: from the MahaRERA filing, which names the promoter's partners or directors, to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' records, which say whether a company is active, how new and how capitalised it is, who else its directors serve and what it has charged. Companies do end: a written reply in Parliament on 1 December 2025 put private companies closed in India from 2020-21 to 2024-25 at 2,04,268, and a Lok Sabha reply on 10 August 2026 put those closed in Maharashtra over the last five financial years, by liquidation, dissolution or striking off, at 36,211.

What you need before you start#

The project's registration, by MahaRERA number or its free page on ReraGenie's project list, which carries the full filing.

The promoter's name exactly as filed. Copy it rather than retyping it from a brochure; spelling decides every search below.

The entity type: partnership firm, company, LLP, individual or "Others". It decides which registry you search.

About an hour and a notes file. The master data services are free to view. Filed documents such as annual returns sit behind the MCA's View Public Documents service, which needs a login and charged Rs 100 per company at the time of writing.

The check, step by step#

Step 1: read the promoter block. Note every name the filing gives and its designation. On a typical registration that is a short list: the median is three partners for a partnership firm that names them, and two directors for a company. On 1,581 registrations a partner or director is itself a company or LLP, written as its name followed by "through its director" and a person's name. The warning sign here is not a short list. It is a mismatch between the entity on your allotment letter or agreement and the promoter on the registration, because the registration binds the entity that filed it.

Step 2: pick the registry. If the filing carries a CIN or LLPIN, copy it, since it finds the company exactly. Older filings often do not: a CIN was filed on 6.5 percent of 2017's company registrations against 84.7 percent of 2026's, so for an older project you search by name, and similar names are common.

Step 3: read the master data. On the MCA portal, the View Company or LLP Master Data service returns the CIN, the date of incorporation, the company's status, its authorised and paid-up capital and its registered office address. Read status first. "Active" is what you want to see; "Strike Off" means the company has been removed from the register, and a promoter in that state needs an explanation before any money moves. Inactivity is not rare: at the end of March 2025, 18,50,932 of the 28,52,449 companies on India's register were active, per Ministry of Corporate Affairs data reported by PTI in May 2025. Read capital in context: a company formed for one project often starts with very little, which marks it as a vehicle and says nothing on its own about the people behind it.

Step 4: set the directors beside the filing. The master data and the View Signatory Details service list each current director with a Director Identification Number and an appointment date. Tick each name from the MahaRERA filing against it. What deserves a question is a name on the filing that the MCA does not show, or a director appointed after the registration whom the filing never mentions. Under section 149 of the Companies Act, 2013 a company's board consists of individuals, so where the filing named another company "through its director", the MCA will show the person, not the company: look that company up separately, with its own master data.

Step 5: follow each DIN. The View Director Master Data service takes a DIN, or a name, and lists the companies and LLPs the person is associated with, with start and end dates. This is where a group usually becomes visible: a run of companies named after projects, sharing one or two people. Several of them showing "Strike Off" is worth asking about. A name search is a lead, not a link, because two people can share a name; the DIN makes it the same person.

Step 6: read the index of charges. Section 77 of the Companies Act, 2013 requires a company to register a charge it creates with the Registrar within 30 days, and section 81 has the Registrar keep a register of charges open to inspection by any person on payment of the prescribed fee. The MCA's View Index of Charges service lists them, with the charge holder, the amount and whether each has been satisfied. Set it beside the project's declared charges on MahaRERA. An open charge on one record and not the other is a question for the promoter and for the lawyer reading your title report, whose exceptions are where a mortgage usually surfaces.

Step 7: return to the register. Search MahaRERA, or ReraGenie's developer pages, for each director's name and any related company's name, and read the status of every registration you find. Lapsed, revoked and deregistered mean different things, the track record method reads promised against actual dates, and the litigation check covers complaints and cases.

If the promoter is a partnership firm#

Partnership firms filed 57.9 percent of published registrations, and the MCA does not hold them. Registering a firm under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932 is optional and carries no penalty, but section 69 stops an unregistered firm from suing to enforce a contract, and stops a person not shown in the register as a partner from suing the firm or its partners. Sections 66 and 67 provide for inspection of the Register of Firms and for copies of its entries; in Maharashtra that means the Registrar of Firms.

The register can confirm who is shown as a partner. It cannot show the firm's capital, accounts or borrowing, and because the charge registration in section 77 applies to companies, there is no Registrar of Companies index of charges to read for a firm. The filing's own list does most of the work: 92.3 percent of partnership registrations name their partners. A partner who is also a company director will turn up in the MCA's name search, with the same caution about shared names.

An LLP sits with the MCA like a company: 98.9 percent of LLP registrations name their partners, and 795 of 800 LLP promoters filed an LLPIN.

An analogy: the badge and the RC book#

A car's badge tells you the make. The registration certificate tells you who owns this car, since when, and whether a bank's hypothecation is noted on it, and nobody buying a used car stops at the badge. A project's brand is the badge. The MahaRERA filing is the RC's first page, naming the owner; the MCA's master data and index of charges are the rest, with the owner's age and the lender's note.

Rohit's check, from abroad#

Rohit (illustrative, as our stories always are) ran this check before he paid anything on the Wakad project he later booked, a 2024 registration where his flat costs Rs 86 lakh. The filing named a private limited company as promoter and two directors: one a person, the other a second company acting "through its director", followed by a name. Names and numbers in this story are illustrative.

From his laptop abroad he looked up both companies on the MCA portal. The project company had been incorporated the year before registration with a paid-up capital of Rs 1 lakh, and he read that for what it was: a company formed to hold one project. Its directors were two people with DINs, one of them the person named after "through its director". The second company was older, with that person on its board, and following the DIN listed four more companies, each named after a project.

His snag came back on the register. The second company's name turned up registrations filed under two spellings, which ReraGenie shows as two developer pages, because each page is one filed name. He read every registration under both, then the project company's index of charges: one open charge, held by the lender the project's declared charges named. He recorded the link between the two companies as his own inference, not a fact, and moved on to the allotment letter. His wider remote routine is in the NRI buyer's playbook.

What the register shows about who sits behind a registration#

Of the 56,091 published registrations as updated on 7 October 2026, partnership firms filed 57.9 percent, individuals 18.1 percent, companies 15.5 percent, "Others" 5.3 percent and LLPs 1.4 percent. The mix is moving: companies and LLPs together filed 11.2 percent of 2020's registrations and 32.7 percent of 2026's, 1,006 of 3,080 to 7 October, with LLPs alone at 15.9 percent.

Read the 2025 dip with care. Registrations from January to June 2025 name partners or directors on only 30 to 43 percent by month, against 65 to 86 percent from July 2025, and the register does not show why. An empty list on a 2025 project is a reason to start from the entity's name, not a finding about the promoter. Companies name directors on 89.0 percent of their registrations; individuals name anyone on 2.0 percent, having no partners to name.

Across all 8,695 company promoters, 1,888 filed a CIN, 21.7 percent, so on an older project the name search is the normal route.

Where the check stops#

ReraGenie's free project pages carry the full filing, including the named partners or directors and the promoter's other registrations, so before you open the MCA portal, open the project's page and copy the names from there. Joint development adds another layer, other names on the land itself, which joint development projects explains.

What the buyer report adds#

The Rs 499 buyer report does the MahaRERA half of this check for one project, each fact with its filing date. It lists the promoter's other registrations and how they ended. It answers the land and title questions, among them who owns the land as filed, the promoter's right to build and sell, and whether the land is mortgaged, with the declared lender and amount where filed: the record to hold against the MCA's index of charges. It sets out complaints and cases in plain words, and closes with what the filings do not contain.

The checklist, in one place#

• Copy the promoter's filed name, entity type and any CIN, LLPIN or GSTIN.
• Confirm the entity on your agreement is the entity on the registration.
• Company or LLP: read the master data, status first, then incorporation date and capital.
• Tick the filing's names against the MCA's directors, with DINs and appointment dates.
• Follow each DIN to the person's other companies and LLPs.
• Read the index of charges against the charges declared on MahaRERA.
• Partnership firm: ask for an inspection or copy of the Register of Firms entry.
• Search the register for each director's other registrations, and record any group link as your inference.

Methodology and sources#

• Register figures: ReraGenie analysis of 56,091 published MahaRERA registrations, as updated on 7 October 2026. Registration year is the year on the registration certificate. "Named" means the promoter personnel record lists at least one partner, director or equivalent, by name and designation only. Promoter profiles count MahaRERA profile ids, not firms.
• MCA21 services named above, as listed on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal in October 2026.
• Law: Companies Act, 2013, sections 77 and 81; Indian Partnership Act, 1932, sections 66, 67 and 69; RERA Act, 2016, section 15.
• Closures: written replies in Parliament, 1 December 2025 (India) and 10 August 2026 (Lok Sabha, Maharashtra). Active companies: Ministry of Corporate Affairs data for end-March 2025, reported by PTI in May 2025.

This article is educational and not legal advice. For a dispute, consult a lawyer who practices before your state's RERA.