The broker has the answer ready before the question: twelve flats on a 450 square metre plot, a hoarding promising possession next Diwali, and no RERA number, because, he says, the project does not need one. He may be right. Section 3(2) of the RERA Act describes three kinds of RERA exempt projects, and a building on a plot that size can be one of them. What an exemption takes away is everything that arrives with a registration number: a public filing, the account rules that come with registering, and the remedies MahaRERA gives a registered project's buyers. What it leaves is a set of older laws that most buyers in Maharashtra have never needed to read.
Key takeaways
- Section 3(2) of the RERA Act excuses three kinds of project from registration: land of 500 square metres or less, or eight apartments or fewer, counted across all phases; a project whose promoter received its completion certificate before the Act began; and renovation, repair or redevelopment that involves no marketing, advertising, selling or new allotment.
- MahaRERA's Order No. 62/2024 of 22 October 2024 treats either size condition as enough, so a project on 500 square metres or less needs no registration whatever its flat count.
- In a registered redevelopment, the Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal held on 4 May 2026 that RERA applies only to the sale component, and that disputes over members' rehab flats belong to the development agreement.
- A project RERA exempts still falls under MOFA, which requires a written agreement for sale before any advance, caps that advance at 20 percent of the sale price and makes the promoter hold buyers' money as a trustee.
- In Mumbai, 364 of the 492 registrations of 2026 that itemise their units, 74.0 percent, declare rehab units for existing occupants, as updated on 3 October 2026.
Neha's neighbour in the rehab building
Neha (illustrative, as our stories always are), 34, is weeks away from the keys to her 2BHK in a Mulund redevelopment project: about 640 sq ft of carpet area, an agreement of about Rs 1 crore and a Rs 60 lakh loan. The project ran late, and because its sale component is registered with MahaRERA, that is where she filed her delay claim. The old society's members moved into their new rehab building months ago, and one of them, the neighbour whose flat pays no property tax, stopped her at the gate. His new flat had measured smaller than the development agreement promised each member, and he had heard about her case. Could he file one too?
That evening she reread the project's MahaRERA filing. Its building table listed the members' flats as rehab units, apart from the flats for sale. Her flat had been sold to her under a registered agreement for sale; his had come to him under the society's development agreement, in exchange for the flat he gave up. Her lawyer's reply was one clause long: the two flats sit on opposite sides of section 3(2)(c). Names and numbers in this story are illustrative.
What an exemption is
An exempt project is one the Act does not require to register before it is advertised, booked or sold: lawful, but without what a registration brings. Section 3(1) of RERA is the rule that a project must register first, and the pre-launch trap shows what follows when a promoter skips it. Section 3(2) lists three exceptions.
An analogy: the building without a camera. Picture two buildings, one with CCTV at the gate and one without. The law against theft is the same in both; what differs is the recording. In the first, anyone can replay who came and went. In the second, the evidence is whatever you kept yourself. A RERA registration is the recording: a filing that shows the promised date, the uploaded approvals, the quarterly progress and every extension. An exempt project is the building without the camera. The laws still apply, but the paper trail is yours to build.
The three exemptions, worked through
1. Small projects, section 3(2)(a). No registration is required where the land proposed to be developed does not exceed 500 square metres, or the apartments proposed do not exceed eight, inclusive of all phases. MahaRERA's Order No. 62/2024 of 22 October 2024 reads either condition as enough. Three illustrative projects show how that works:
- Twelve flats on a 450 square metre plot: exempt on the land test, whatever the flat count.
- Seven flats on 800 square metres: exempt on the flat count.
- Twelve flats on 800 square metres, built as two phases of six: not exempt, because both tests count all phases together. Once registration is required, the Act's Explanation requires each phase to be registered separately, which is why phase-wise registrations carry their own numbers.
2. Buildings completed before RERA, section 3(2)(b). A project whose promoter had received the completion certificate before the Act's registration duty began on 1 May 2017 never had to register. A resale flat in such a building has no RERA number for that reason, and MOFA vs RERA explains the law that governs it instead. The test is the completion certificate, which is why the difference between the OC and the CC matters.
3. Redevelopment that sells nothing, section 3(2)(c). Renovation, repair or redevelopment needs no registration if it involves no marketing, advertising, selling or new allotment of any apartment, plot or building. A rebuilding that only rehouses the existing members fits it. Once flats are sold to outside buyers the project must register, and in Maharashtra practice RERA reaches the sale component. The members' rehab flats may appear in the filing as rehab units, but they are given under permanent alternate accommodation agreements, nothing in them is sold, and they fall outside RERA.
The Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal applied that split on 4 May 2026. Dismissing an appeal by an existing member of a housing society against the society's developer, it held that in a redevelopment RERA applies only to the sale component, and that disputes over the members' rehab flats arise from the development agreement. That agreement, it said, is enforced individually or through the society on its own terms, and cannot be enforced under RERA. It was the answer Neha's neighbour got.
Before paying anything in a project with no RERA number, ask the promoter in writing which clause of section 3(2) exempts it, and on what figures. A small project's answer is a plot area and a flat count across all phases, which you can check against the approved plan. If the flat is being sold to you, section 3(2)(c) cannot be the answer, because selling is exactly what it excludes.
Then test the answer against the register. Every MahaRERA registration has a free page on ReraGenie with the full filing and the promoter's other registrations, so a search on the project and on the promoter shows whether either is there. If you are told registration is "in process", district alerts email you new registrations in the districts you choose, free during the pilot beta.
What still protects you
An exempt project sits outside RERA's scope, not outside the law. When the Maharashtra Ownership Flats (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2025, enacted on 31 December 2025, took RERA-registered projects out of MOFA, Maharashtra's 1963 flats law, it left MOFA governing the projects RERA does not, small exempt ones included. And the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 counts housing construction among the services it covers, so a buyer in any project, registered or not, can complain to a consumer commission of a deficiency in it.
| Protection | A registered project (RERA) | An exempt project |
|---|---|---|
| The agreement | A registered agreement for sale (section 13) | A written agreement registered under the Registration Act, 1908 (MOFA section 4) |
| The advance | No more than 10 percent of the cost before that agreement (section 13) | The agreement first, then an advance or deposit of no more than 20 percent of the sale price (MOFA section 4) |
| Buyers' money | 70 percent into a separate project account, withdrawn against engineer, architect and CA certificates, declared when registering (section 4(2)(l)(D)) | A separate account, held by the promoter as a trustee and spent only for the purposes it was paid for (MOFA section 5); no public filing shows whether it is |
| A late flat | Refund with interest, or interest for every month of delay, at the rate the state's rules set (section 18) | Refund with interest if possession is not given in time (MOFA section 8), or a consumer complaint for compensation |
| Defects after possession | Five years from possession to report them; the promoter must fix them free within 30 days (section 14(3)) | What the agreement promises, pursued as a deficiency in service before a consumer commission |
| Conveyance | A conveyance deed to the allottees and their association (section 17), with MOFA's section 11A deemed conveyance if the promoter defaults | Conveyance to the buyers' society under MOFA section 11, and deemed conveyance through the competent authority if the promoter will not sign |
| The public record | A MahaRERA filing: promised date, uploaded approvals, quarterly progress, extensions | None: the record is the agreement, the land record and whatever approvals the promoter shows you |
| The forum | MahaRERA and its adjudicating officer, then the Appellate Tribunal; the consumer commission stays open | A consumer commission or a civil court; a RERA complaint may have nothing to attach to, and for rehab flats the tribunal ruled RERA relief out in May 2026 |
Sources: RERA, sections 3, 4(2)(l)(D), 13, 14(3), 17 and 18; MOFA, sections 4, 5, 8, 11 and 11A, as amended in 2025; the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. The choice between the two forums is set out in RERA vs consumer court.
For an existing member in a redevelopment, neither column is the main protection. The member is not buying a flat, so what protects the member is the development agreement and the member's own accommodation agreement, which is why what the old owner gets is worth reading before a society signs.
How often the line runs through a project
Section 3(2)(c) reads like a footnote. In Mumbai, the line it draws runs through most of what is being registered now.
Source: ReraGenie analysis of MahaRERA registrations dated 2026, as updated on 3 October 2026, by filed district. Counts only registrations that file a unit-level table (492 of 577 in Mumbai, 2,749 of 3,057 statewide), since a filing that does not itemise its units cannot show rehab units.
Three of every four new Mumbai registrations that itemise their flats declare rehab units: flats sold to nobody, because they rehouse people who were already there. Across the whole register, 3,227 published projects declare rehab units, as updated on 3 October 2026, each a registered project in which some flats, on the tribunal's reasoning, sit outside what the registration enforces.
For anyone left outside RERA's remedies, the forum that remains is crowded. Across India, the India Justice Report 2026 found 90 districts without a consumer forum and 35 percent of consumer cases pending for more than three years, as reported by Moneylife.
Where buyers get it wrong
Taking "exempt" on trust. No RERA number means one of two things: a project the Act exempts, or one being marketed in breach of section 3, which MahaRERA can penalise under section 59. Checking a registration takes five minutes.
Counting one phase. The thresholds count every phase of the layout. Six flats now and six more later on the same land is twelve.
Reading a registered redevelopment as covering every flat in it. The registration reaches what is sold. A buyer should run the extra redevelopment checks; a member enforces the development agreement.
Forgetting MOFA. An exempt promoter who asks for an advance before a written agreement for sale is asking for something MOFA's section 4 forbids, and that agreement must be registered. Conveyance runs through MOFA too, with deemed conveyance when the promoter will not sign.
Expecting RERA's defect clock. Do not count on the five-year defect liability in an exempt project. Write the defect promise into the agreement and keep dated evidence, because a consumer complaint is decided on paper.
What Neha's neighbour did
He took his measurement to the society's managing committee, which raised it with the developer under the development agreement, the document the tribunal had pointed to. Neha's claim stayed at MahaRERA, under her agreement for sale. One project, two kinds of flat, and two different sets of papers to reach for when something goes wrong.
What the report shows, and what it cannot
An exempt project files nothing with MahaRERA, so no report can read it. A registered one can, including the sale component of a redevelopment like Neha's. For any covered Maharashtra project, the Rs 499 ReraGenie buyer report sets out sanctions, units and sales building by building, which is where a redevelopment's filed rehab units appear beside the flats for sale; land and title answered as five questions, starting with who owns the land as filed, which for Neha's project is the old society; and rights under RERA, with a worked delay-interest example of the kind her claim rests on. See what the buyer report covers.
Methodology and sources
- RERA, 2016: section 3, with the proviso and Explanation to section 3(2), and sections 4(2)(l)(D), 13, 14(3), 17, 18 and 59; MahaRERA Order No. 62/2024, 22 October 2024.
- MOFA, 1963, sections 4, 5, 8, 11 and 11A, as amended by the Maharashtra Ownership Flats (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2025.
- Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal, 4 May 2026, as reported by LiveLaw; India Justice Report 2026, as reported by Moneylife.
- Rehab units: ReraGenie analysis of published MahaRERA projects, as updated on 3 October 2026, counting a project when its filed unit-level table carries a non-zero rehab count.
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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