News: MahaRERA Rejects Brokerage Refund After Cancellation-16-05-2026
A claim for refund of brokerage after a booking is cancelled may not be maintainable under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, unless buyers produce clear documentary proof and establish the agent’s project-specific liability, the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) has said.
In an order dated April 23, 2026, it dismissed a complaint by two homebuyers who had booked two apartments in the same Mumbai project and later cancelled one because of financial difficulties.
The buyers said that while refunding the consideration, the developer told them brokerage had been paid to the broker for the sale. They alleged that the broker, an employee of a firm, misrepresented facts and fraudulently inflated the commission component in the total consideration, causing them wrongful loss of Rs. 5,04,613 on the first flat and Rs 2,13,039 on the second.
They said they were never told the broker worked for a brokerage firm and believed he was the developer’s sales executive. Nor, they said, were they informed that he was acting as a real estate agent, that commission would be payable, or that the quoted price included commission payable by the developer.
The developer responded that the buyers had executed a registered cancellation deed and accepted the refund in 2024. It argued that the complaint came after a delay of over one year and that the complainants were no longer "allottees" once they cancelled.
MahaRERA noted that the complainants referred to invoices allegedly raised by the agent for brokerage but did not upload copies or any supporting documents. Without cogent documentary proof, it said, the claim could not be verified.
The authority recorded as an admitted fact that the agent’s registration certificate had lapsed, but held that this alone did not make the refund claim maintainable. The buyers had to show that the agent was a registered agent of the project and had collected the amounts as an authorised agent of the project registered by the promoter. In the absence of such proof, no liability could be fixed on the agent under RERA.
The complaint was dismissed on the ground of maintainability.
