Registered is not a permanent state. A Maharashtra project's registration can lapse quietly on a date, be revoked loudly by an order, sit suspended in a list, or be surrendered by the promoter and deregistered. Each status has a different cause, a different consequence for buyers, and a different message about the promoter. Sales offices blur these words; the register does not.
Key takeaways
- Lapsed means the registration's validity expired without completion or extension; the project cannot lawfully sell until revived, and MahaRERA publishes year-wise lapsed lists.
- Revoked means the regulator terminated the registration for cause under Section 7, the gravest status on the ladder.
- Deregistered means the promoter exited under Order 42/2023, allowed essentially only with zero allottees, and complaints remain possible even after.
- The lists are public and downloadable; checking them takes two minutes and catches what a project page alone can miss.
The status ladder, from healthy to dead
- 1
Registered, in validity
The normal state: inside the declared completion date, filings current. Everything else on this page is a deviation from here.
- 2
Extended
Validity stretched under Section 6/7 rules, up to a year for genuine grounds. Lawful, public, and a data point about the original promise.
- 3
Lapsed
The validity date passed with no completion and no extension. Selling stops as a matter of law; the project joins MahaRERA's year-wise lapsed lists until revived.
- 4
Suspended or in abeyance
An enforcement half-state: registration held pending compliance, often visible in MahaRERA's published suspension lists, with marketing barred meanwhile.
- 5
Revoked or void ab initio
The regulator terminated the registration for cause under Section 7, default, false disclosure, violation of orders, or found it void from the start. The register's death certificate.
- 6
Deregistered
The promoter's own exit under Order 42/2023, for projects that will not proceed, permitted essentially where no allottees would be stranded. Complaints remain maintainable even after.
Source: RERA Act Sections 5 to 7; MahaRERA Order 42/2023 and published status lists
An analogy: a driving licence, not a birth certificate
A birth certificate is issued once and stays true forever. Buyers treat RERA registration like that: verified once in 2023, trusted in 2026. A registration is actually a driving licence: valid to a date, renewable on conditions, suspendable for misconduct, and meaningless once expired however genuine it looks framed on the wall. Nobody boards a taxi whose licence expired two years ago on the argument that it was definitely valid when issued.
What each status means for your money
Lapsed. The commonest deviation and the most misunderstood. Causes range from a stalled site to simple filing neglect, and the distinction matters: a project physically complete but administratively lapsed is an irritant, while a 40 percent-built lapsed project is a stall wearing a legal label. Either way, fresh sales are unlawful until revival, so any office booking units out of a lapsed project is announcing its compliance culture. Existing buyers keep their Section 18 remedies, and a lapse is often the event that converts a waiting buyer into a complainant.
Suspended. The regulator's pressure valve: registration held, marketing barred, pending compliance. Projects enter and exit these lists; a project that visits them repeatedly is telling you about management.
Revoked. Section 7's full penalty: termination for default, false disclosure or violations. Rare relative to lapses, and the strongest possible walk-away. Post-revocation, the Act channels the project toward completion by other means, the association of allottees or the authority's directions, a long road no new buyer should volunteer to walk.
Deregistered. The orderly exit. Order 42/2023 (February 2023) recognised that registered projects sometimes will not proceed, litigation, unviability, family disputes, and allowed promoters out, but essentially only where there are no allottees or bookings to strand, and with complaints still maintainable afterward. On a promoter's record, one clean deregistration reads as honesty; a pattern of them reads as a habit of launching before thinking.
The status lists are separate pages from the project search. A project page can look superficially normal while the same registration number sits on the lapsed or suspension list, so check both: the project's own page for its declared status and dates, and MahaRERA's published lapsed, suspended, revoked and deregistered lists for its name. Two minutes, and it is the difference between the promoter's presentation and the regulator's.
Meera almost bought from a lapsed register
Meera (illustrative, as ever) liked a nearly-finished Chennai-style compact 2BHK on a Thane project's second phase. The project page looked routine. Her checklist's last line, run the name against the status lists, surfaced the registration on the previous year's lapsed list: completion date passed fourteen months earlier, no extension on record, no OC filed. The sales pitch had presented the same fourteen months as "possession shortly". She kept her booking amount and her weekend.
Where this check sits in the method
Status is step three of the portal check, and the promoter's history with these lists belongs in the track record read: a portfolio's lapses, suspensions and revivals are its compliance biography. The lists are also underused market data, which is why our stalled projects data story leans on them. The Rs 499 ReraGenie buyer report runs the status sweep automatically for any covered Maharashtra project, current status, list appearances, date history, alongside the filings read; sign up on ReraGenie before a lapsed register costs you more than two minutes.
The one-line summary
Registered has an expiry date, lapsed means selling must stop, suspended means the regulator is squeezing, revoked means it ended for cause, and deregistered means the promoter exited before anyone was stranded. The words are precise, the lists are public, and the two-minute check reads both.
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