The message arrives on a Sunday evening from a channel partner you met once at a property exhibition. A new tower is "launching soon". The pre-launch price is several lakh below what the brochure will say. Early applicants get priority allotment, and all it takes is an expression of interest cheque for Rs 2 lakh, "fully refundable". There is no registration number anywhere in the message, and no QR code. What is on offer is a pre-launch booking, and RERA's answer to it is short: a project that must be registered cannot be advertised, marketed or booked until it is. The cheque would be real. What it would buy is the question.
Key takeaways
- Section 3(1) of the RERA Act bars a promoter from advertising, marketing, booking, selling or inviting persons to purchase in any manner in a project that must be registered, until it is registered, whatever the payment is called.
- Breaking section 3 exposes a promoter to a penalty of up to 10 percent of the project's estimated cost under section 59(1), and continued violation to imprisonment of up to three years, a further fine of up to 10 percent, or both.
- Money paid before registration carries none of a registered booking's safeguards: no filed completion date, no filing to read, and no 70 percent account, which section 4(2)(l)(D) makes part of the application for registration.
- MahaRERA requires every project advertisement to carry its registration number and QR code, and in July 2024 it reported penalising 628 projects for advertisements without them, imposing Rs 88.90 lakh in penalties.
- If an EOI is not refunded, a complaint to MahaRERA under section 31 can name both the promoter and the agent, and section 12 lets a person who paid on the strength of a false statement in an advertisement withdraw and recover the entire investment with interest.
Rohit's pre-launch offer
Rohit (illustrative, as our stories always are), 35, buys from abroad and checks everything remotely, with a brother-in-law in Pune for the errands a screen cannot run. Before he had drawn up any shortlist, a channel partner sent him exactly that message: a WhatsApp note, a glossy PDF, a price "before RERA", and an EOI of Rs 2 lakh, "fully refundable", for priority allotment once the tower launched. The PDF carried a skyline, a price table and a phone number. It carried no registration number and no QR code. He typed the project's name into MahaRERA's search, and nothing came back. Names and numbers in this story are illustrative.
What the law actually says
No registration, no booking. Section 3(1) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 says no promoter shall advertise, market, book, sell or offer for sale, or invite persons to purchase in any manner, any plot, apartment or building in a real estate project, or part of one, in any planning area, without first registering the project with the state's real estate regulatory authority. "Pre-launch", "EOI" and "soft launch" are marketing labels, not exemptions: the exemptions are listed in section 3(2), and an invitation to purchase is caught however it is made.
The exemptions are narrow. Section 3(2) lists the projects that need no registration, among them small ones: where the land to be developed does not exceed 500 square metres, or the apartments do not exceed eight, counting all phases. A tower sold through channel partners from a priority list is not that project. If a seller says registration is not required, ask in writing which clause of section 3(2) applies.
The penalty is set against the whole project. Under section 59(1), a promoter who contravenes section 3 is liable to a penalty of up to 10 percent of the project's estimated cost, as the Authority determines it. Under section 59(2), a promoter who does not comply with orders made under section 59(1), or continues to violate section 3, is punishable with imprisonment of up to three years, or a fine of up to a further 10 percent of the estimated cost, or both.
The 10 percent cap applies to every advance. Section 13(1) bars a promoter from accepting more than 10 percent of the cost of an apartment, plot or building as an advance payment or an application fee without first entering into a written agreement for sale and registering it. An EOI cheque is one or the other in substance. The cap limits what any promoter may take before a registered agreement; it does not make a pre-registration EOI lawful.
What your cheque is missing. The 70 percent rule lives in section 4(2)(l)(D), one of the declarations a promoter files with its application for registration: 70 percent of the amounts realised from allottees goes into a separate account in a scheduled bank, for the project's land and construction cost only, and comes out against certificates from an engineer, an architect and a chartered accountant that each withdrawal is in proportion to completion. Money taken before registration sits outside that structure, with nothing on the public record to hold the promoter to: no filed completion date, no approvals, no quarterly progress report. The cheque goes wherever the receipt says it goes.
The agent is bound too. Section 10(a) bars a registered real estate agent from facilitating the sale or purchase of a plot, apartment or building in a project that is required to be registered and is not. A channel partner collecting EOIs for an unregistered tower is doing what that clause describes.
And the advertisement should have told you. MahaRERA requires every project advertisement to carry the project's registration number and its QR code. Order No. 46/2023 of 29 May 2023 set out how the QR code must appear, and Order No. 46A/2023 of 29 July 2023 made its absence punishable from 1 August 2023, with penalties of Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 under section 63 of the Act. A pre-launch offer cannot carry either, because the project does not have them yet; how to use the code when one does appear is in the QR code on every ad.
"Fully refundable" in a WhatsApp message is a promise, not a protection. Before registration, the only terms your money carries are the ones written down: who received it, for what, into which account, and on what conditions it comes back. If none of that is in writing from the promoter, the terms of your refund will have to be argued from a chat thread.
An analogy: a seat on a flight that has no slot
Paying an EOI before registration is like buying a seat on a flight the airline has not yet been cleared to operate. The fare is attractive and the booking reference looks real, but no departure time has been filed with anyone, no regulator publishes the flight's status, and if it never takes off, your refund turns on the seller's goodwill and the wording of your receipt. A registered project is the scheduled flight: a filed departure time, a public status page, and a regulator to complain to when it slips. The pre-launch discount is the difference in fare, and it pays for exactly those things.
If the money does not come back: your options
| Route | What it rests on | What it can achieve | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| A written demand to the promoter | The terms on your receipt and in your messages | The refund, where the promoter honours its own terms | Name a date, keep it in writing, and keep every advertisement and message |
| Complaint to MahaRERA, naming the promoter and the agent | Section 31, for the breach of section 3 by the promoter and of section 10(a) by the agent | Regulatory action, including a penalty on the promoter of up to 10 percent of the project's estimated cost under section 59 | A penalty punishes the breach; it is not, by itself, the return of your cheque |
| A claim on a false statement in the offer | Section 12, where you paid on the strength of an advertisement or prospectus containing a false statement, such as a claim that the project was registered | Withdrawal, with the entire investment returned with interest | You must show what was said, that it was false, and that you paid because of it |
What MahaRERA will entertain and order for a project that was never registered turns on the facts, which is why the papers matter more than the phone calls. The filing is set out in how to file a MahaRERA complaint. The choice between MahaRERA and a consumer commission for a money claim has rules of its own, compared in RERA vs consumer court.
What the regulator's record shows
MahaRERA enforces its advertising rules at scale. In July 2024 it reported penalising 628 projects for advertisements that did not display the registration number and QR code as required, with Rs 88.90 lakh in penalties imposed and Rs 72.35 lakh collected, and said it had worked with the Advertising Standards Council of India to identify the violators.
Source: MahaRERA figures reported by Housing.com and Storyboard18, 8 July 2024; QR code requirement in force from 1 August 2023 under Orders 46/2023 and 46A/2023
Two things follow from those 2024 figures. The first is reach: 628 projects were caught at the mechanical end of the rules, the number and the code, which a buyer can check from a phone in seconds. The second is proportion: Rs 88.90 lakh across 628 projects is about Rs 14,000 a project, near the bottom of the Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 range for each violation. A pre-launch drive for an unregistered project sits at the other end of the Act, where section 59 measures the penalty against the estimated cost of the whole project.
What to do this week
If you are holding a pre-launch offer:
- Ask for the registration number, then check it yourself. Search MahaRERA's portal by project and by promoter, as set out in how to check a project on the MahaRERA portal. "Applied" or "in process" is not a number, and the other ways a number gets dressed up are in phase-wise registrations and other listing tricks.
- Read the advertisement for its number and QR code. Every project advertisement must carry both.
- Check the channel partner's own registration. Is your agent registered? shows how.
- Ask four questions in writing. Which entity receives the money, into which account, on what refund terms, and by what date.
- Wait for the registration. Once the project is registered, a booking becomes lawful, capped at 10 percent before a registered agreement, on the timeline in booking amount to registration. Read the allotment letter before paying the booking amount.
If you have already paid:
- Gather the paper. The receipt, the advertisement, the messages, and the record of the cheque or transfer, including the name of the entity that received it.
- Ask for the refund in writing, with a date.
- Check the portal again. If the project has registered since, read its filing before paying anything more.
- Escalate if the date passes. A complaint to MahaRERA under section 31 can name the promoter and the agent. Keep the advertisement, because a claim under section 12 turns on what it said. If the company or the people behind the offer cannot be found, see a lawyer the same week.
If you have paid and are waiting for the project to register, ReraGenie's district alerts email you new MahaRERA registrations in the districts you choose, free during the pilot beta, so you hear when it registers and can read its filing before paying anything more. Set up district alerts.
What Rohit did
Rohit ran the first list from abroad, most of it in one evening. The portal held no registration for the project. His brother-in-law drove past the address on a Saturday and sent photographs of a fenced plot and a hoarding: a rendering, a phone number, no registration number and no QR code. Rohit then emailed the channel partner his four questions. The reply was a voice note: the cheque could be made out to "the group company", the refund would be "no problem", and registration was "in process". He declined in writing and said he would look again once the project was registered. His shortlist, when he drew it up, held only registered projects, and how he narrowed it is told in the NRI buyer's playbook.
What the filings add
A project with no registration has no filing, so there is nothing to read. The day it registers, there is. Every MahaRERA registration has a free ReraGenie project page with the full filing, every filed document and a permission chain: whether the legal title report, layout approval, building plan approval, commencement certificate and occupancy certificate slots hold a document, with its upload date, which records an upload and not proof that the permission was granted. For any covered Maharashtra project, the Rs 499 buyer report adds three answers this topic turns on: the promoter's other registrations and how they ended, which is the record of the entity that will sign your agreement; the possession story, the first promised date against the current one; and land and title answered as five questions, including whether the promoter has the right to build and sell, and whether the land is mortgaged. Find the project the day it appears, and read the 70 percent rule for what its account must now do.
The one-line summary
A pre-launch EOI buys a place in a queue the law does not recognise, on terms only your receipt records: ask for the registration number, look for the QR code, put your questions in writing, and book only once the project is registered and its filing has been read.
Methodology and sources
- The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016: sections 3(1), 3(2)(a), 4(2)(l)(D), 10(a), 12, 13(1), 31(1) and 59.
- MahaRERA Order No. 46/2023 dated 29 May 2023 and Order No. 46A/2023 dated 29 July 2023, on QR codes in advertisements and the penalty for leaving them out.
- Enforcement figures: MahaRERA, as reported by Housing.com and Storyboard18 on 8 July 2024.
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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