The short answer: through a licensed professional, with a 7/12 extract no older than six months, and the Authority has 60 days. Regulation 2.2 is the front half of the permission chain, the part that happens before a single brick is laid, and it is where a buyer's due diligence should start rather than end.
Key takeaways
- An application must be made through a registered architect, town planner or licensed engineer or supervisor, never by the owner alone.
- It uses the prescribed form at Appendix A1 or A2, and complete information in that form is mandatory.
- It carries a scrutiny fee receipt and the plans and statements required by Regulations 2.2.2 to 2.2.19.
- The 7/12 extract or property register card must be dated not earlier than six months before submission.
- Where a registered agreement to sell has created third party interest, those buyers' consent is required for a revised permission, as specified under RERA.
- If the Authority says nothing for 60 days, the permission is deemed sanctioned.
- But a deemed permission that breaks the regulations is unauthorised development, not a licence.
- Sanctioned plans go on the Authority's website until a month after the last occupancy certificate.
Who may apply, and how
Chapter 2, Regulation 2.2.1, Notice / Application starts with a restriction that is easy to skim past.
Every person intending to carry out development or redevelopment, to erect, re-erect or alter any part of a building, or to demolish a building, shall give notice through a registered architect, town planner or licensed engineer or supervisor. Not directly. The application goes in on the prescribed form, Appendix A1 or A2, and it is mandatory to submit complete information in that form.
With it go the scrutiny fee receipt, any other fee or charge the Authority prescribes, and the plans and statements required by Regulations 2.2.2 through 2.2.19. One set of plans stays in the Authority's office for record after permission or refusal. Plans may be submitted electronically, and the Authority may set a date after which all submissions, approvals and communication go online.
That professional requirement pairs with the signature rule: the drawing carries the name, address and licence number of the person who signed it, and that person must be registered or licensed by the Authority. So every permission in Maharashtra is traceable to a named professional from the moment it is filed.
The documents that establish title
Chapter 2, Regulation 2.2.3, Ownership Title and Area* is the list, and several items have a shelf life or a consent requirement worth knowing.
| Document | The detail that matters |
|---|---|
| 7/12 extract or property register card | Latest, dated not earlier than six months before the date of submission |
| Power of attorney, or attested lease deed of the lessor authority | Where applicable, enabling ownership. In Ulhasnagar, a conveyance deed or sanad from the Revenue Authority may also be considered |
| Original measurement plan or city survey sheet | Issued by the Land Record Department. Where the city survey of a gaothan is incomplete, an architect-authenticated measurement plan signed by adjacent holders may be accepted |
| Statement of area by triangulation or CADD | From qualified licensed technical personnel or an architect, with an affidavit from the owner about the area |
| Approved sub-division, amalgamation or layout | Self-attested copy, if any |
| Consent of third parties | On a revised permission where interest has been created by a registered agreement to sell or lease, the consent of those persons as specified under the RERA Act |
| NOC on Government or local authority leasehold land | Required where there is deviation from lease conditions, and also where the proposal uses more FSI than the lease deed mentions |
The sixth row is the one that belongs to buyers rather than to the file.
On a revised permission, where third party interest has been created by a registered agreement to sell or lease an apartment, the consent of those interested parties is required, as specified under the RERA Act.
That means a project that has already sold flats cannot simply revise its sanctioned scheme and file the change. The people who have signed agreements have a say in it, and their consent is a document the application is supposed to carry.
A buyer told that plans "have been revised" mid-project should therefore be asking a specific question: was consent taken, and from whom. The regulation contemplates that it was.
The last row matters on a different set of projects. On land leased from Government or a local authority, an NOC is needed not only where the scheme deviates from lease conditions, but also where it proposes to use more FSI than the lease deed mentions. Leasehold plots carry an FSI figure in the lease itself, and exceeding it is a separate permission from exceeding the zone's.
The 60 day clock, and what it does not do
Chapter 2, Regulation 2.6.2, Deemed Permission is the provision most often quoted and most often quoted incompletely.
If within 60 days of receiving the notice, along with the necessary permission fees, the Authority fails to intimate in writing its refusal, its sanction, or sanction with modifications or directions, the notice with its plans and statements shall be deemed to have been sanctioned.
Then come the qualifications, and they are the substance.
Banded by condition
- It authorises nothing against the titleNothing shall be construed to authorise any person to do anything on the site in contravention of, or against the terms of, the lease or titles of the land
- It applies only to a conforming proposalThe proposal must be strictly in conformity with these regulations, and must not violate any draft or final Development or Regional Plan or planning proposal published by notice
- A non-conforming deemed permission is not a permissionDevelopment carried out under it is deemed unauthorised development for the purposes of sections 52 to 57 of the MR&TP Act, 1966
- The Authority still has 15 days to objectOn receiving a claim for deemed permission, the Authority must communicate its remarks within 15 days, failing which the proposal is approved and the Commencement Certificate with one set of approved plans is issued within 15 days thereafter
- Someone is answerableAn explanation shall be called from the officers who failed to dispose of the proposal within 60 days, and action taken against the defaulter
Source: Chapter 2, Regulation 2.6.2, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025
Read the third band again, because it inverts what "deemed permission" sounds like.
Silence from the Authority does not convert a non-compliant proposal into a compliant one. It converts a compliant proposal into a sanctioned one. A scheme that breaches the regulations and gets deemed permission through the Authority's inaction has produced unauthorised development, exposed to sections 52 to 57 of the MR&TP Act, which is the enforcement machinery.
So "we have deemed permission" is not, on its own, an answer to whether a project is compliant. It is a statement about how the permission arrived, not about whether the scheme was entitled to it. The compliance question stays open, and it is the buyer's question, because unauthorised development is a risk to the building rather than to the file.
Then it becomes public
Chapter 2, Regulation 2.6.4, Display of Sanctioned Permissions on Authority's Web-Site closes the sequence for anyone outside it. After a development permission is sanctioned, the Authority shall make available all plans relating to such permission on its website, if available, and keep those documents there until one month from the date of issuance of the last occupation certificate.
For the whole life of a project, therefore, its sanctioned plans are meant to be publicly retrievable. That is worth knowing alongside what the plan's colours mean, because the two together let a buyer check the drawing rather than take a description of it.
What the register shows about this stage
MahaRERA registration comes after the Commencement Certificate, not before, so the register cannot show the application or the 60 day wait. What it does show, free, is the output.
Every filing lists the commencement certificates on record, the filed documents, the certifying architect, engineer and chartered accountant, the land area and the buildings with their proposed and sanctioned floors. It also carries the registration status, and that is the number worth pausing on: of the published corpus, tens of thousands of registrations are no longer live, having lapsed, been de-registered or revoked. A project's registration status is filed and current, and a lapsed registration is not a paperwork detail.
The commonest failure here is not a missing permission. It is a permission that exists but has moved: revised plans, an extension of validity, a change in the building count. Those show up in the filing's extension history with the promoter's own stated reason, which is the closest a public record comes to a running account of how a permission has changed since it was granted.
Related reading
- How to read a sanctioned plan without being an architect
- Sanctioned plans online, and the permission's clock
- Who is allowed to sign your building plans
- Completion, occupancy and part OC: what each proves
Where the filings come in
The application, its documents and the 60 day clock sit with the Planning Authority. The register picks the story up at registration.
Every project at reragenie.com is free to read and carries the filed land area, the buildings and their floors, the commencement certificates and full document list, the certifying professionals, the extension history with the reasons the promoter gave, the registration status as filed, and any complaints or litigation with case numbers.
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, and includes a project watch for 90 days.
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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