How to check a project on MahaRERA
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 did something unusual for Indian consumer law: it made developers publish their own track record, in a searchable place, for free.
In Maharashtra that place is the MahaRERA portal. It takes about fifteen minutes to check a project properly. Most buyers spend longer choosing tiles.
Finding the project
Go to the MahaRERA website and open the registered projects search. You can search by project name, promoter name, or the registration number itself. The registration number is the most reliable — names get reused, and marketing names often differ from the registered name.
If a builder is selling you a flat and cannot produce a registration number, that is the end of the conversation. Under the Act, a project above the size threshold cannot be advertised, marketed, booked or sold without registration. An unregistered project is not a bargain; it is a project with no regulator standing behind your agreement.
A nuance worth knowing
Not every project requires registration. The Act exempts projects below the statutory land-area and unit-count thresholds, and projects where the promoter had already received the completion certificate before the Act commenced. Ask which exemption applies rather than accepting "RERA does not apply to us" as an answer.
Reading the registration entry
Once you have the project page, these are the fields that repay attention.
Proposed completion date — and whether it has moved
The promoter declares a completion date at registration. The Act permits extensions in defined circumstances, and each extension is recorded. What you want to see is the original date alongside the current one.
A project registered with a 2024 completion date now showing 2027 is not necessarily a bad project. Construction is genuinely difficult. But it tells you the declared date in your agreement is a soft number, and you should plan your rent, loan and possession assumptions accordingly.
The sanctioned plan and the building you were shown
Promoters upload sanctioned plans and approvals. Compare the approved layout against the brochure. Amenities that appear in the brochure but not the sanctioned plan are, at best, aspirational — and under the Act, the promoter is obliged to deliver what was represented at the time of sale.
Quarterly progress updates
Registered promoters are required to file periodic progress updates. Gaps in the filing history are informative in themselves: a promoter who stops updating is usually a promoter with something inconvenient to report.
The professionals on record
The entry names the architect, engineer and chartered accountant certifying the project. These are real professionals with reputations. A project where those names change repeatedly is worth a second look.
The part almost nobody opens: complaints
MahaRERA publishes orders in complaints filed against promoters. This is the single most useful thing on the portal and the least used.
Search the promoter's name — not just the project — because a builder's conduct on their last three projects predicts their conduct on yours far better than their brochure does. Read what the complaints were actually about:
- Possession delay complaints are common across the industry and, on their own, tell you mostly about market conditions.
- Complaints about deviation from the sanctioned plan are a different category. They suggest the promoter delivered something other than what was sold.
- Refund and interest non-payment complaints, especially where an order was passed and then had to be enforced, tell you what happens when you and this promoter disagree.
A clean record is meaningful. A pattern of the same complaint from many buyers is very meaningful.
The agent, too
Real estate agents dealing in registered projects are themselves required to register. If the person brokering your purchase is not registered, you have less recourse if you are misled during the sale. It takes thirty seconds to check on the same portal.
What the portal will not tell you
Being honest about the limits matters more than selling the tool:
- It does not verify title. A registered project can still sit on land with a defective chain of ownership.
- It does not tell you whether the price is fair. That needs registered comparable transactions.
- It reflects what the promoter filed. Filings can be incomplete or optimistic.
- It says nothing about construction quality beyond what certifying professionals have signed.
So a clean MahaRERA record is a necessary check, not a sufficient one. It removes a category of risk. It does not remove the rest.
We check this, and fifty-odd other things
A Property Health Score covers MahaRERA status and complaint history alongside title, builder record, price benchmarking and total cost — returned as one score with a clear recommendation.
Get a Property Health Score