Between the booking amount and the registered agreement for sale, a Maharashtra flat purchase rests on one document: the MahaRERA allotment letter. It acknowledges the money you have paid, names the flat and the parking, and sets out what you lose if you change your mind. It is easy to sign at the sales desk in a few minutes, or, from abroad, to return a scan the same evening. It deserves an hour instead, because a clause corrected before you pay costs an email, and a dispute afterwards can end up at MahaRERA, which disposed of 6,945 complaints in 2025 and still had 6,916 pending when it published those figures.
Key takeaways
- Since MahaRERA Order No. 31/2022 of 1 July 2022, a promoter that collects up to 10 percent of the price before the agreement for sale must issue an allotment letter in the form of MahaRERA's model.
- The model fixes what a buyer who cancels can lose: nothing within 15 days of the letter, then 1, 1.5 and at most 2 percent of the flat's cost, with the balance refunded without interest within 45 days.
- A promoter that cancels because the balance booking amount was not paid may also keep no more than 2 percent, and it may change the cancellation terms only in the buyer's favour.
- The letter is not the agreement for sale: the model gives two months to execute and register the agreement, and section 13 of the RERA Act bars a promoter from taking more than 10 percent before it.
- As updated on 3 October 2026, 55,998 of the 56,068 published MahaRERA projects carry an allotment letter format in their filing, so the format your promoter filed is almost always there to compare against.
The letter MahaRERA wrote
MahaRERA prescribed a model allotment letter in Order No. 30/2022 of 3 June 2022, then replaced that order with Order No. 31/2022 of 1 July 2022, which modified two of the model's clauses and took effect that day. Where a promoter collects a deposit or advance of up to 10 percent of the total consideration, it must execute an allotment letter with the buyer in the form of the model annexed to the order. The 10 percent ceiling comes from section 13 of the RERA Act, and the money timeline of buying a flat shows where it sits among the other payments.
Two features make the model more than a template. First, its cancellation schedule is a floor: a promoter may change it only by giving the buyer more days to cancel or a smaller deduction, and not otherwise. Second, a promoter whose letter departs from the model anywhere else must highlight each departure in a different colour and disclose it in a deviation sheet uploaded on MahaRERA when the project is registered. The format a promoter intends to use is therefore on the public record before anyone books.
The letter is not the agreement for sale. The protections buyers usually have in mind, the 3 percent carpet area adjustment, interest on delayed possession and five years of defect liability, are written into the model agreement for sale, which the registered agreement follows. The letter's job is narrower: it holds the allotment, the money and the exit terms steady until that agreement is signed.
- 1
1. The letter is issued
It acknowledges the booking amount, which may not exceed 10 percent of the cost before a registered agreement for sale.
- 2
2. Days 1 to 15
Cancel, and nothing may be deducted.
- 3
3. Day 16 onwards
1 percent of the cost to day 30, 1.5 percent to day 60, then 2 percent at most, with the balance refunded without interest within 45 days.
- 4
4. By the end of two months
The agreement for sale is executed and registered within two months of the letter, or a period the promoter communicates. From then on the agreement, not the letter, governs.
Source: MahaRERA Order No. 31/2022 (1 July 2022) and its model allotment letter; RERA Act, 2016, section 13
What you need before you start
- The letter, in draft, before any money moves. Ask for it by email, so you can read it at home.
- MahaRERA's model, published as the annexure to Order No. 31/2022.
- The format your promoter filed. In almost every registered project it sits among the documents uploaded to MahaRERA, with a deviation sheet where one was filed; the portal walkthrough shows where to find them.
- The registration number, the promised completion date, and what you were quoted in writing: flat, parking, price and payment plan.
- An hour, while the money is still in your account.
Checking the letter, step by step
Step 1. Get the letter before you pay
The model letter acknowledges money already received, so a sales office will naturally ask for the payment first. Ask for the draft first instead. What you will see: a letter naming the flat, the price and the amount to be received. Red flag: a payment link, and a promise that the letter will follow.
Step 2. Download the format the promoter filed
Open the project's registration on MahaRERA, typing the address yourself, and download the allotment letter format and any deviation sheet from its documents. What you will see: often a deviation sheet whose title declares that there is no deviation. Open it anyway. Red flag: a filed departure that makes the cancellation terms worse for the buyer, which the order does not permit.
Step 3. Compare your letter with both, clause by clause
Lay the letter you were sent beside the filed format and the model, and work through the table below. What you will see: mostly identical wording. Red flag: any difference between your letter and the format on MahaRERA that is not highlighted.
| Clause | What the model fixes | What to check in yours |
|---|---|---|
| The flat | Flat number, floor, building or wing, and carpet area as RERA defines it | The flat and wing you chose, with a carpet area figure, not only a super built-up one |
| Parking | The parking allotted and its type; since a MahaRERA order of 29 April 2024, each space's number, type, size and location, with the approved parking layout attached to the letter or the agreement | Each space named, with length and breadth, plus vertical clearance if covered. 'Endeavour to allot' is not an allotment |
| Price and money received | Total consideration without GST, stamp duty and registration, and the booking amount received | One total covering everything you were quoted, and a received amount that matches your payment proof |
| Possession | The date of handing over possession | A date, not a season; compare it with the completion date on the MahaRERA registration |
| Your cancellation | Nothing within 15 days of the letter; then 1, 1.5 and 2 percent of the cost; refund without interest within 45 days | The same bands or kinder, with no forfeiture or extra charge added |
| The promoter's cancellation | At most 2 percent of the cost if the balance booking amount is unpaid, or if the agreement is not executed after notice | No larger figure, and for an unsigned agreement, the 15-day notice first |
| The agreement for sale | Executed and registered within two months, or a period communicated to you; the draft enclosed for reference | A deadline you can meet, and the draft read against MahaRERA's model agreement |
Parking deserves a second look, because a letter can name a space the promoter was never entitled to sell: what a builder can sell you explains the difference.
Step 4. Read the cancellation clause word by word
It decides what a change of mind costs, and it is where a difference costs the most. Check the four bands, the 45-day refund and the 2 percent ceiling on the promoter's side. Red flags: the booking amount described as forfeited on cancellation, a flat percentage from the first day, or an administrative or processing charge added on top of the deduction.
The 15 free days run from the date the letter is issued, not from the day you read it. If it reaches you days after the date it carries, ask in writing, before you sign, which date the window runs from, or ask for more days, which the model lets a promoter grant.
Step 5. Check the deadline for the agreement, and read the draft
The model gives two months, or a period the promoter communicates, to execute and register the agreement for sale. If you will be abroad, start the power of attorney now: the NRI buyer's playbook sets out the chain of attestation and stamping, and it takes weeks. Then read the draft agreement enclosed with the letter against the ten load-bearing clauses. Red flag: no deadline at all, or a demand that would take you past 10 percent before the agreement exists.
Step 6. Ask for corrections in writing, then pay and file
Email the clause numbers, the model's wording and the filed format's wording, and ask for the letter to be reissued. Sign only the corrected letter. Pay by traceable transfer, and only into the project's own account (the three bank accounts explains which one), and keep the letter, the filed format, the deviation sheet and the payment proof together. Red flag: a refusal to restore wording that is the model's own.
An analogy: the refund table on a train ticket
Indian Railways publishes its cancellation charges, and they rise as the journey approaches. The clerk who issues your ticket cannot print a harsher charge on it; the passenger's only job is to check the ticket against the table. The model allotment letter is that table for a flat booking: MahaRERA fixed the rise, and a promoter's letter may be kinder than the table but never harsher.
Rohit's letter, read from abroad
Rohit (illustrative, as our stories always are), 35 and buying from abroad, had settled on the third project on his Pune shortlist, the one whose filings moved every quarter. The sales office emailed the allotment letter on a Friday, asking him to sign, scan and return it with a booking amount of Rs 8.6 lakh, 10 percent of a Rs 86 lakh flat. Names and numbers in this story are illustrative.
He could not visit the sales office, so he downloaded the format the promoter had filed on MahaRERA, the deviation sheet beside it, which declared that there was no deviation, and MahaRERA's model. The flat, carpet area, parking, price and two-month window all matched. The snag was the cancellation clause: the letter in his inbox kept the free 15 days and then forfeited the whole booking amount, where the model and the promoter's own filed format allowed at most 2 percent of the cost. On his flat, that was Rs 8.6 lakh against no more than Rs 1.72 lakh.
He replied that evening, quoting the model's bands and the filed clause, and asked for the letter to be reissued before he paid. The corrected letter arrived on Tuesday; the sales office said an older template had been used. He signed it, wired the booking amount from his NRE account to the project's account, and saved the letter, the filed format, the deviation sheet and the payment advice in one folder.
If you are about to send a booking amount to a project you cannot visit, ReraGenie's free project page shows the registration's status, the possession timeline and the complaints filed against the project with their case numbers, so you can read them before the letter is signed.
What the filings show
The scale is large: ANAROCK counted about 65,135 homes sold in Pune and 1,27,875 in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region in 2025, together 49 percent of housing sales across India's seven largest cities. In a MahaRERA-registered project, each of those bookings that took money before the agreement was meant to come with a letter following the model.
As updated on 3 October 2026, 55,998 of the 56,068 published MahaRERA projects carry an allotment letter format in their filing, and 18,406 of them carry a separate deviation sheet, which is almost universal for projects registered in 2023 and 2024, after the 2022 orders.
Source: ReraGenie analysis of MahaRERA filings, as updated on 3 October 2026
Read the last two bars with care. Many of these sheets are titled as a statement that there is no deviation at all, with file names such as "No Deviation.pdf". A document in that slot says nothing until you open it, and even then it describes the format the promoter filed, not the copy in your inbox, which is why step 3 compares your letter with the filed format itself.
What the buyer report adds
For a covered Maharashtra project, the Rs 499 ReraGenie buyer report puts the comparison material in one place:
- The project's filed documents as a ZIP, including the allotment letter format the promoter filed and its deviation sheet where one was filed, so step 3 starts with the files already in hand.
- A list of what to verify before you book, which tells you to compare the agreement you are offered against the draft filed on MahaRERA.
- The complaints and cases against the project in plain words, with their case numbers, plus a free 90-day project watch that emails you when the project's filing changes.
See what the buyer report covers.
The checklist, in one place
- Ask for the allotment letter in draft before any money moves.
- Download MahaRERA's model, and the format and deviation sheet your promoter filed.
- Match the flat, carpet area and parking (number, type, size, location) to what you chose.
- Check that the price excludes GST, stamp duty and registration, and that nothing you were quoted sits outside it.
- Keep everything paid before the agreement within 10 percent.
- Read the cancellation clause against the model's bands and the 45-day refund.
- Note the two-month deadline for the agreement, and start any power of attorney now.
- Get every unhighlighted difference corrected in writing, sign only the corrected letter, and pay only into the project's own account.
The one-line summary
The allotment letter is meant to be MahaRERA's text with your flat's details filled in: check that yours matches the format your promoter filed, that its cancellation bands are the model's or kinder, and that the agreement follows within two months, before the booking amount leaves your account. It is one stage of the whole journey of buying a flat in Maharashtra, and undoing a booking once the agreement is registered is a different procedure: cancelling a booking under Circular 50/2025.
Methodology and sources
- ReraGenie analysis of MahaRERA filings, as updated on 3 October 2026. The counts record whether a document is on file, not what it says.
- MahaRERA Order No. 31/2022 (1 July 2022), which superseded Order No. 30/2022 (3 June 2022), and its model allotment letter; MahaRERA's order of 29 April 2024 on parking details.
- The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, section 13.
- MahaRERA's complaint figures for 2025, as reported by Outlook Money; ANAROCK Research, housing sales in the top seven cities, 2025.
This article is educational and not legal advice. For a dispute, consult a lawyer who practices before your state's RERA.
Evaluating a project right now?
The ReraGenie buyer report reads every filing for one project and sets out the red flags, the checks that came back clear and what to verify before you book, each fact with its filing date. Rs 499, one time.
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