News: MahaRERA Rejects Builder’s Plea on Landowner’s Jailing-10-02-2026
A developer near Mumbai who blamed court disputes and the imprisonment of the landowner for failing to secure an Occupation Certificate (OC) has been ordered by the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) to hand over the flat and pay interest to the buyer.
The homebuyer purchased the flat through an agreement for sale executed in 2010 for about Rs 20 lakh. The agreement carried no possession date, though the buyer said the developer’s representatives had promised delivery within a year. When the project ran into legal trouble the developer offered a refund, which the buyer declined.
The buyer approached MahaRERA in 2020, complaining that on registering the project the developer had unilaterally pushed the possession date from the originally committed 2011 to 2017 and then 2019, and still had not delivered the flat with an OC. He sought interest for each month of delay from 2013, three years after booking, or alternatively interest at the State Bank of India’s highest marginal cost of lending rate (MCLR) plus 2% from the 2017 completion date declared to MahaRERA until realisation.
The developer countered that the agreement, executed under the Maharashtra Ownership of Flats Act, 1963, contained no possession date, that the buyer had accepted its terms without objection and that no time-bound commitment had been made. It said court cases, including a Civil Court injunction, had delayed construction through no fault of its own, and that buyers were repeatedly offered either a flat in another project or a full refund with interest. By choosing to wait, it argued, the complainant had waived any compensation claim.
On the OC, the developer said it applied in December 2018 but the authorities required the landowner’s signature. The landowner was in jail in an unrelated case and facing insolvency proceedings, so could not sign, and a request to waive the requirement had not been resolved.
MahaRERA was not persuaded. It directed the developer to hand over possession with the OC within 30 days of the order and to pay interest on the sale consideration at SBI’s highest MCLR plus 2 per cent per annum from 2013 until possession is actually delivered.
