The message in a Thane housing society's WhatsApp group was about redevelopment, and the first reply was confident: RERA protects us now, so the builder will have to sign the land over. Someone searched the MahaRERA register for the building and found nothing. For anyone who owns a flat in a Maharashtra building finished before RERA began in 2017, that empty search raises the question this article answers, MOFA vs RERA: which of the two laws actually stands behind the flat, and which one any dispute with the builder would be fought under.
Key takeaways
- MOFA, Maharashtra's 1963 flats law, governs a flat in a building RERA never reached, such as one whose completion certificate was issued before RERA's registration duty began on 1 May 2017.
- Since an amendment enacted on 31 December 2025, MOFA does not apply to projects RERA governs, except a few provisions, chiefly those on the competent authority and deemed conveyance.
- Under section 8 of MOFA, a promoter who fails to give possession by the agreed date must, on demand, refund what was paid with simple interest at 9 percent a year, unless the delay was beyond the promoter's control.
- MOFA's deemed conveyance route, added in 2008, lets a society obtain its land and building through the competent authority when the promoter will not convey, and a new section 11A extends it to RERA-registered projects.
- As of November 2025, 26,338 of Maharashtra's 1,26,544 co-operative housing societies had received deemed conveyance and 90,947 were still pending, according to the state Co-operation Department.
Meera's two flats
Meera (illustrative, as our stories always are) was in that group. She bought her Thane 2BHK new from the builder in 2009, on a registered agreement, and the building received its completion certificate the following year. The loan was paid off long ago; the flat now stays empty for family visits and costs her about Rs 12,000 a year in property tax (the tax side of keeping a second house is a separate story). The society was registered in 2011. She had left its paperwork to the managing committee, and only the redevelopment talk made anyone check whose name the land was in. It was still the builder's.
Her new 3BHK, a twelfth-floor flat in a KDMC tower near Dombivli, carries a MahaRERA registration number on every document. The old flat has none, and she wanted to know whether that left it unprotected. Names and numbers in this story are illustrative.
Two laws, and the line between them
MOFA is the Maharashtra Ownership Flats (Regulation of the Promotion of Construction, Sale, Management and Transfer) Act, 1963. For more than fifty years it was the law a Maharashtra flat buyer relied on: it makes the promoter sign a registered agreement, refund with interest when possession is late, form the buyers' society, and convey the land and building to it.
RERA is the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, a central law that MahaRERA administers in the state. Its registration duty began on 1 May 2017. A project whose promoter had already received the completion certificate by then did not have to register (section 3(2)(b)); one still unfinished was an ongoing project and did. The Bombay High Court upheld the Act, including its reach into ongoing projects, in Neelkamal Realtors Suburban Pvt Ltd v Union of India on 6 December 2017. Because the test is the completion certificate, the difference between an OC and a CC matters here.
Two sections of RERA decide how the laws sit together. Section 88 says RERA is in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other law in force. Section 89 gives RERA effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent with it in any other law. MOFA therefore did not disappear in 2017: section 88 kept it in force beside RERA, and for buildings RERA never reached it remained the only flats law that applied.
The legislature then drew the line itself. An amendment and validation Act enacted on 31 December 2025 wrote into MOFA that it does not apply to projects to which RERA applies, except a few provisions, chiefly those on the competent authority and deemed conveyance, and added a section 11A extending deemed conveyance to RERA-registered projects. A building RERA never reached lives under MOFA. A RERA project lives under RERA, and borrows MOFA for conveyance.
An analogy: a fresh coat of paint
Think of RERA as a fresh coat of paint over an old wall. Where the new coat reached, on every project registered since 2017, it is the surface you see, and where the two colours disagree, the new one shows: that is section 89. The old coat was never scraped off, which is section 88. On walls the new coat never reached, buildings completed before RERA began, the old coat is still the whole surface. The 2025 amendment simply marked, in the old law itself, where the new coat begins.
The two laws side by side
| Question | MOFA, 1963 (a building RERA never reached) | RERA, 2016 (a registered project) |
|---|---|---|
| Which buildings | Flats sold by a promoter in Maharashtra. Since 31 December 2025, only projects RERA does not govern, apart from a few provisions, chiefly the competent authority and deemed conveyance | Projects registered with MahaRERA: new projects since 1 May 2017, and older ones still without a completion certificate on that date |
| The agreement | Section 4: a written agreement, registered under the Registration Act, 1908, before the promoter takes an advance or deposit, which may not exceed 20 percent of the sale price | Section 13: a registered agreement for sale before the promoter takes more than 10 percent of the cost |
| A late flat | Section 8: on demand, a refund of what was paid with simple interest at 9 percent a year from the date the promoter received it, unless the delay was beyond the promoter's control | Section 18: a refund with interest, or interest for every month of delay until possession, at SBI's highest MCLR plus 2 percent under Maharashtra's rules |
| The society | Section 10: the promoter applies to register the buyers' co-operative society or company, within the period the rules prescribe | Section 11(4)(e): the promoter must enable the formation of the allottees' association or co-operative society |
| Conveyance | Section 11: land and building to the society within four months of its formation; since 2008, deemed conveyance through the competent authority if the promoter does not | Section 17: a registered conveyance deed in favour of the allottee and the association of allottees; if the promoter defaults, MOFA's section 11A deemed conveyance applies |
| Who hears a dispute | The consumer commission or the civil court for claims against the promoter, the competent authority for deemed conveyance, and a criminal court for offences under section 13 | MahaRERA: the Authority for refund and interest, its adjudicating officer for compensation, then the Appellate Tribunal; the consumer commission stays open |
Sources: MOFA, sections 4, 8, 10, 11 and 13, as amended in 2008 and 2025; RERA, sections 3, 11, 13, 17, 18, 88 and 89. The booking cap is explained in the money timeline of buying a flat, and the RERA delay rate is worked in rupees in computing your delay interest claim.
For Meera's Thane flat, the left column is the whole of the law. The builder's duty to convey arose under section 11 once the society was registered in 2011, and it has gone unmet for nearly fifteen years. The remedy is MOFA's deemed conveyance, decided by the competent authority, an officer not below the rank of District Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies. How deemed conveyance works, from the demand letter to the property card, is a procedure of its own, and the society now has a reason to start it.
For the Dombivli flat, the right column governs. If that promoter one day fails to execute the conveyance deed section 17 requires, the society can use the same deemed conveyance machinery, through section 11A.
Meera's real worry for the new flat is the old story repeating: a builder still holding the land years after the keys. The difference is that this time the record is public. ReraGenie's free project page for any MahaRERA registration shows the landowners as filed, whether the occupancy certificate slot holds a document, and every extension with the promoter's stated reason, and a project watch (Rs 299 for 90 days) emails her when that one filing changes.
Why it matters beyond one building
Meera's society is not an outlier. In a reply to a question in the Legislative Assembly, the state's Co-operation Department put the number of registered co-operative housing societies at 1,26,544, with figures as of November 2025.
Source: Maharashtra Co-operation Department, reply in the Legislative Assembly, figures as of November 2025, as reported by Indian Cooperative. The categories are as reported and do not add up exactly to the total.
For every society that had received deemed conveyance, more than three were still pending. The route is the one MOFA created in 2008, and by the department's own count most of the societies that need it had yet to use it.
Where owners get it wrong
Reading an empty MahaRERA search as no protection. A building whose completion certificate came before RERA's registration duty began was never required to be on the register. Its agreement was made under MOFA, and MOFA's duties on the promoter, from the registered agreement to conveyance, still bind. How to check whether a project is RERA registered tells you which case you are in.
Treating RERA as MOFA's replacement. Section 88 makes RERA an addition to other laws, not a substitute. What the 2025 amendment did was take RERA projects out of MOFA; it left everything RERA never reached exactly where it was.
Taking an old building's dispute to MahaRERA. For a project that never needed registration, a RERA complaint may have nothing to attach to: an adjudicating officer's order on a complaint about a project that did not require registration has been quashed as outside his jurisdiction. Claims against the builder go to the forums the building always had, and the consumer commission is the one built for disputes RERA does not reach.
Assuming a registered society owns its land. Registration under section 10 creates the body; conveyance under section 11 gives it the land. They are separate steps, and the first year after possession is when the second one usually slips. The property card or 7/12 for the plot shows whose name the land is in.
Before anyone in the society signs or files anything, settle which law the building sits under. Search the MahaRERA register and read the date on the completion certificate: one dated before 1 May 2017 means the building sits outside RERA, and its conveyance runs through the competent authority under MOFA, not through MahaRERA.
What the report shows, and what it cannot
There is no MahaRERA filing behind Meera's older building, so no report can read one; its record is the registered agreement, the society's papers and the land record. Her Dombivli flat is different. For any covered Maharashtra project, the Rs 499 ReraGenie buyer report reads the filing and sets out three things this article turns on: land and title answered as five questions, starting with who owns the land as filed, which is the land her society should one day receive; the possession story, the first promised date against the current one; and her rights under RERA, with a worked delay-interest example. It also states what the filings do not contain. See what the buyer report covers.
The one-line summary
A flat in a building RERA never reached is protected by MOFA, deemed conveyance included; a RERA project is governed by RERA, and since the 2025 amendment it borrows from MOFA chiefly the competent authority and deemed conveyance.
Methodology and sources
- MOFA, 1963, with the 2008 amendment that added deemed conveyance and the amendment and validation Act enacted on 31 December 2025.
- RERA, 2016: sections 3, 11, 13, 17, 18, 88 and 89.
- Bombay High Court: Neelkamal Realtors Suburban Pvt Ltd v Union of India, 6 December 2017.
- Society figures: Maharashtra Co-operation Department, reply in the Legislative Assembly, as of November 2025, as reported by Indian Cooperative.
This article is educational and not legal advice. For a dispute, consult a lawyer who practices before your state's RERA.
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