News: MahaRERA: Developer Must Pay Promised Stamp Duty-01-09-2026

A developer who promised at the time of booking to bear stamp duty and registration charges cannot later pass that burden to the buyer, the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) has ruled. It also directed the developer of a plotted development project near Mumbai to pay the buyer interest for delayed possession, although the agreement for sale was never registered.

The buyer had paid nearly the whole consideration of over Rs 1.50 crore, which covered the sale consideration, maintenance security deposit and corpus fund. An allotment letter and a notarised agreement for sale were executed on March 11, 2025, but the agreement was not registered. The buyer said the allotment letter issued at booking stated the developer would pay stamp duty and registration charges, and alleged the developer was now asking him to pay.

The developer argued that without a registered agreement the buyer could not claim to be an allottee. It said the complaint was meant to create a dispute, delay registration and claim interest and penalties, that the buyer had not cooperated in executing the final Sale Deed, and that possession could not legally be handed over while the Deed was unregistered. The clause in the allotment letter, it said, was "merely a typographical error", and the later Agreement for Sale placed the liability on the purchaser.

MahaRERA rejected these arguments. It noted that an allotment letter had been issued and the developer admitted receiving substantial payments, so non-registration did not strip the buyer of allottee status. It pointed out that under Section 13 of the RERA Act a developer cannot accept more than 10% of the property cost without first entering into a written and registered agreement for sale, yet here almost the full amount had been taken. Both parties were directed to register the agreement.

On the charges, the authority noted that the deviation report dated 07-01-2025, uploaded by the developer on the MahaRERA website for its model agreement for sale, specifically provides that the developer shall bear stamp duty and registration charges on the agreement and documents executed under it. The developer could not now call the matching clause in the allotment letter a typographical error and was bound by its own project disclosures, the order said.

MahaRERA directed the two sides to execute the agreement for sale on the terms of the allotment letter and told the developer to pay interest for a possession delay of nearly four months.