Cancelled booking? Claiming a stamp duty refund in Maharashtra, and your GST back

Cancelling a registered booking unwinds the flat. It does not unwind the taxes. The builder's refund cheque covers what the builder received, and the stamp duty on your agreement never reached the builder at all: it went to the state, which collected Rs 21,928 crore of it between April and July 2026, according to IGR Maharashtra figures reported by Punekar News on 6 August 2026. Mumbai's 80,221 registrations in the first half of 2026 alone carried Rs 6,968 crore, on IGR data analysed by Knight Frank. A stamp duty refund in Maharashtra exists for exactly this case. It has to be asked for, in the right form, within six months, and a buyer who misses the window leaves the state holding a sum usually larger than the builder's entire deduction.

What you need before you start#

Gather these before the cancellation deed is signed; two of them only the builder can give you.

• The originals. The registered agreement for sale, its stamp duty receipt (the GRAS challan or e-SBTR) and, once it exists, the registered cancellation deed. The originals go in with the claim, so make sure the agreement comes back to you rather than staying in the builder's file.
• The Index II of both documents, which records each registration's number, date and duty paid; Index II explains how to download it.
• From the builder: a dated cancellation letter, a written computation of the refund, every GST invoice you paid against, and either a GST credit note or the certificate described below.
• Your PAN and a bank account in your name, for both claims.

Then set a reminder well inside six months from the day you sign.

Step by step#

The stamp duty: what the Act allows#

Section 47 of the Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958 lets the Collector make an allowance, in effect a refund, for stamp duty spent on an instrument that has come to nothing, and section 48 fixes the time for asking. For a flat buyer the operative words sit in the proviso to section 48(1): where an agreement for sale was stamped and registered and is then cancelled by a registered cancellation deed, for whatever reason, before possession is taken and within five years of the agreement, the application may be made within six months of the date the cancellation deed is registered.

That is four conditions, and each is a date: the agreement registered, the cancellation registered, possession not taken, and the clock. The six-month limit dates from an amendment of 24 April 2015; before it, the period was two years. How the duty itself was computed is in stamp duty and registration charges.

The application starts online, on IGR Maharashtra's stamp duty refund application, and the originals then go to the Collector of Stamps office, which processes the case. Who signs the order depends on the amount: under section 52A, as amended from 7 April 2026, the Collector can grant up to Rs 20 lakh, up from Rs 5 lakh, larger refunds go to senior officers of the department, and anything above Rs 1 crore is forwarded to the Chief Controlling Revenue Authority.

Where the duty was paid electronically, through GRAS or by e-SBTR, the Maharashtra E-payment of Stamp Duty and Refund Rules, 2013 keep 1 percent of the refund, at least Rs 200 and at most Rs 1,000. The registration fee is a different matter: it paid for a registration that took place, and it does not come back.

Red flag: a builder offering to "handle" the refund for you. The duty, the application and the refund are all yours.

The GST: a question of the calendar#

GST does not go through the Collector. The builder collected it with each instalment and paid it on to the government, so it comes back by one of two routes, and the date decides which. The rate itself is explained in GST on a flat.

Inside the window, from the builder. Section 34 of the CGST Act lets the builder issue a credit note, reduce its own tax and return the GST to you with the refund. Since 1 October 2022 a credit note must be declared by 30 November following the end of the financial year in which the supply was made, or by the date the builder files its annual return for that year, if earlier. GST charged in the year to 31 March 2025 could be credited until 30 November 2025 at the latest.

After the window, from the GST department. Once the builder can no longer reduce its tax, it returns the consideration without the GST. CBIC Circular 188/20/2022-GST of 27 December 2022 gives the unregistered buyer a route of their own: a temporary registration on the GST portal using a PAN, choosing the state where the builder is registered, and a refund claim on Form GST RFD-01 under the category for unregistered persons. The claim needs the invoices, the agreement, the builder's cancellation letter, proof of payment, and the builder's certificate that it paid the tax and has neither adjusted it nor issued a credit note for it. The two years for filing run from the date of the builder's cancellation letter, and no refund is paid below Rs 1,000.

Red flag: a refund computation that simply subtracts the GST, with neither a credit note nor the certificate. It leaves you without the paper either route needs, so ask for one or the other before you sign the deed.

What the courts have said about the deadline#

The Supreme Court considered the clock in Harshit Harish Jain v State of Maharashtra (2025 INSC 104), decided on 24 January 2025. The buyers had registered their agreement in September 2014, paying Rs 27,34,500 in stamp duty. They executed a cancellation deed on 17 March 2015 and registered it on 28 April 2015, four days after the six-month limit replaced the two-year one, and applied on 6 August 2016. The refund was sanctioned and then recalled as time-barred. The Court held that the right to a refund accrued when the cancellation deed was validly executed, not when it was registered, so the older two-year period governed; that a mere technical delay should not by itself extinguish an otherwise valid claim; and that the revenue authority had no power to review its own final order. The refund was restored with interest.

A Bombay High Court ruling reported in September 2025 dealt with the five-year condition. A buyer had registered an agreement in December 2013 with Rs 25,64,120 of stamp duty, terminated it in March 2019 after the possession date passed, lost at MahaRERA, won at the Appellate Tribunal, and settled during the developer's further appeal; the cancellation deed was executed only on 28 December 2022. The department refused the refund because the cancellation fell outside five years. The court set that aside: the delay came from RERA proceedings the buyer had been bound to pursue, and without the cancellation deed there had been nothing to claim against. It ordered the refund with interest at 6 percent a year.

And in November 2025 the Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal held that a buyer withdrawing from a delayed project cannot recover stamp duty, GST, registration charges or TDS from the developer. None of those sums stayed with the developer, so a Section 18 refund covers the money it received towards the flat, and the taxes are claimed from the authorities that hold them.

None of this makes the deadline soft: both cases took years. If your cancellation follows a date that keeps moving, the project's free page on ReraGenie shows the first promised possession date against the current one and every extension with the promoter's stated reason, the record a Section 18 claim rests on.

An analogy: a cancelled train ticket#

A cancelled train ticket returns the fare less a fixed charge, but only through the proper channel and before a cut-off; the booking site's convenience fee never comes back; and once the ordinary window closes, a separate claim with its own form and deadline is the only way left. In a cancelled booking, the stamp duty is the fare, the registration fee is the convenience fee, and the GST comes back through the builder while its window is open and through your own claim once it is not.

Neha's three cheques#

Neha (illustrative, as our stories always are) cancelled an earlier first booking before her Mulund redevelopment purchase, and that story ended with the deed exchanged against the builder's cheque in five weeks, roughly 2 percent lighter. The cheque was the builder's money. Three other sums were still out.

The stamp duty, Rs 4.8 lakh on a Rs 80 lakh agreement registered in March 2025, was the largest. She signed and registered the cancellation deed on the same January morning, applied online the following week, and took the originals to the Collector of Stamps a fortnight later. The order returned Rs 4.79 lakh, the state keeping Rs 1,000. The Rs 30,000 registration fee was gone, as she had expected.

The snag was the GST. Of the Rs 1.6 lakh she had paid, Rs 1.2 lakh was charged on instalments in the financial year to March 2025, whose credit-note window had closed by 30 November 2025. The builder credited the other Rs 40,000 with its refund and, for the rest, gave her the dated cancellation letter and the certificate the circular requires. She filed RFD-01 herself, with most of the two years still in hand. Names and numbers in this story are illustrative.

Who returns what#

What the report shows before you book#

The cheapest cancellation is the one you never need. The Rs 499 ReraGenie buyer report reads a Maharashtra project's record before the agreement is registered: its complaints and cases in plain words, with case numbers, which is where refund disputes surface; the possession story, with the first promised date against the current one; and your rights under RERA with a worked delay-interest example, which is what a Section 18 exit is worth if the date slips. If a complaint is where this ends, how to file a MahaRERA complaint covers the forms and the fee.

The checklist#

• Before signing the cancellation deed, get the refund computation, the GST route and the original agreement in writing or in hand.
• Sign and register the deed before possession and within five years of the agreement, and note both dates.
• Apply online within six months, counted from the day you sign, then take the originals to the Collector of Stamps.
• Expect up to Rs 1,000 kept from the refund where the duty was paid electronically, and the registration fee lost.
• For GST: a credit note inside the window; otherwise the cancellation letter, the builder's certificate and Form RFD-01 within two years.
• Keep the agreement, the deed, both Index II entries and every receipt in the file you started on registration day.

The one-line summary#

The builder returns what it received, the state returns the stamp duty if you apply within six months, the registration fee stays spent, and the GST comes back from the builder or the GST department depending on the date: claim each from whoever holds it.

This article is educational and not tax advice. Confirm the figures for your own case with a chartered accountant.

This article is educational and not legal advice. For a dispute, consult a lawyer who practices before your state's RERA.