What a TNRERA Registration Actually Checks, and What It Does Not

"It's RERA approved." Few sentences in Indian real estate carry more weight with less inspection. It sits at the bottom of every brochure, it gets said at every site visit, and it is meant to end the conversation about whether a project is safe.

It should start that conversation instead.

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 is one of the best things to happen to Indian homebuyers in a generation. In Tamil Nadu it is administered by the Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority, TNRERA, and its registration number is the first thing we look up on any new project in Chennai. But a registration is a registration. It is not an inspection, a valuation or a guarantee. Knowing the difference is the whole game.

Start with the word itself. "Approved" appears nowhere in the way the Act treats a project. Projects are registered. Plans are approved, by CMDA, by DTCP, by a local body – and those are different offices doing different jobs. When somebody says a project is "RERA approved", they are folding two checks into one, and the one they have dropped is usually the one you needed.

What is RERA, in one paragraph?

RERA is a central law that every state implements through its own authority and rules. It requires most new residential and commercial projects to register before they are advertised or sold, it requires the developer to disclose a defined set of information and keep it updated, and it gives buyers specific rights with specific remedies when things go wrong. It also requires real estate agents to register, and it bars them from facilitating the sale of a project that should be registered and is not.

That is the shape of it. Now the detail.

Which projects have to register?

A project must register if the land proposed to be developed exceeds 500 square metres, or if the number of apartments proposed exceeds eight, including all phases. Below both thresholds, registration is not mandatory, which is why you will meet small buildings and some plotted layouts without a number. That is not automatically a red flag. It does mean the protections below do not apply in the same way, and your own checks have to do more of the work.

A project that was ongoing when the Act came into force, and had not received its completion certificate, also had to register. Completed projects did not, which is why a resale flat in an older building calls for a different set of checks, set out in buying a resale flat in Chennai.

So the very first question is not "is it registered?" but "should it be?" A twelve-flat building that has no registration number is not a project to walk into on trust.

What registration actually verifies

When a developer applies, it submits a set of documents and declarations to TNRERA. The authority checks the application is complete and in order, and the project then appears on the TNRERA website with its details. Among the things the developer must place on record:

The sanctioned plan, layout plan and specifications approved by the competent authority, which in and around Chennai usually means CMDA or DTCP.

The approvals and commencement certificate, and the details of any approvals still pending.

The developer's own details, its track record of past projects, and the status of those projects.

A declaration, supported by an affidavit, that the developer has a legal title to the land, or the authority to develop it, along with the details of any encumbrances.

The proposed date of completion, which becomes a promise the Act can hold the developer to.

The number, type and carpet area of the apartments, and the area of exclusive balconies and terraces.

Read that list again and notice the verbs. Submitted. Declared. Placed on record. TNRERA is a registry of disclosures and a referee of promises. It is not a surveyor, a title lawyer or a structural engineer.

What registration does not verify

Here is where most buyers relax too early.

Title. The developer declares that it has title. RERA makes that declaration a legal liability if it is false, which is a real deterrent, but the authority does not run a title search on your behalf. A thirty-year chain of documents, an encumbrance certificate and the revenue records still need a pair of eyes, and we have written up how that check works in patta, chitta and the EC.

Quality. RERA does not inspect the concrete, the plumbing or the waterproofing during construction. What it does do is give you a remedy afterwards, which we will come to.

Price. Nothing in a registration says the price is fair. A project can be fully registered and wildly overpriced at the same time.

Location risk. Flooding, an approach road that disappears in the monsoon, a high-tension line next door: none of this is the authority's business. It is very much yours.

The brochure. The registration covers what is in the sanctioned plan and the agreement. The clubhouse in the rendering, the "proposed" metro station and the lake view are covered only to the extent they are written into the agreement for sale.

How to read a project page on the TNRERA website

Every registered project has a page, and it is a better read than any brochure. Search by the registration number from the advertisement – the Act requires a registered project's adverts to carry it, along with the website address where its details can be found. Then look for five things.

The completion date the developer has declared. This is the date the Act cares about. If the sales team is quoting you a date earlier than the one on record, ask why, and believe the record.

The approvals. Check that the plan approval is there, and look at its date and the authority that granted it. Note anything listed as pending.

The quarterly updates. A registered developer is required to update the project page with the number of units booked and the status of construction. A page that has gone quiet for several quarters is telling you something, even when the sales office is very loud.

The carpet area of the unit types. Compare it to what you have been quoted. If the quote is in super built-up area and the registration is in carpet area, you now have the information to work out the loading, which is the subject of its own note.

The complaints and orders, where they are shown. A project with orders against it is not necessarily a bad project. A project with a pattern of them is worth a harder look.

The 70 per cent rule, and why it matters

One of RERA's most important protections is invisible to most buyers. The developer must deposit 70 per cent of the amounts it collects from buyers for a project into a separate bank account, and can only withdraw from that account to cover the cost of land and construction for that project, in proportion to the work done. Each withdrawal has to be certified by an engineer, an architect and a chartered accountant.

Why does this matter so much? Because the classic way Indian projects failed before RERA was not fraud so much as diversion. Money collected for Project A was used to buy land for Project B, and when the market turned, Project A stopped. The 70 per cent account does not make that impossible, but it makes it a great deal harder, and it makes it traceable.

Your rights after you sign

This is where RERA earns its reputation. A few of the rights worth knowing by heart:

Advance limit. A developer cannot take more than 10 per cent of the cost of the apartment as an advance or application fee without first entering into a written agreement for sale and getting it registered. If you are being asked for a larger booking amount on a handshake, that is a conversation to stop.

Changes to the plan. Once you have booked, the developer cannot make changes to the sanctioned plans, layout or specifications of your apartment without your consent, beyond minor alterations the Act permits. Larger changes to the building need the written consent of at least two-thirds of the allottees.

Delay. If the developer fails to hand over possession by the date in the agreement, you have a choice. You can withdraw and get your money back with interest, or you can stay in the project and be paid interest for every month of delay until possession.

Defects. If you find a structural defect, or a defect in workmanship, quality or services, within five years of taking possession, the developer must fix it within thirty days at no charge. If it does not, you are entitled to compensation. Five years is long enough to see a monsoon or four. Keep a record.

Conveyance. The developer has to execute a registered conveyance deed in your favour, and hand the common areas over to the association of allottees, within the time the Act and local laws set.

None of these rights are sacrosanct in the sense of enforcing themselves. They are enforced by complaints, and a complaint is only as strong as the paper trail behind it. Keep every receipt, every email and every version of the agreement.

The agent's side of the table

RERA also applies to people like us. A real estate agent who facilitates sales in registered projects must register with the authority, keep proper books, and not facilitate the sale of a project that is required to register and has not. An agent is also bound not to make false statements about a project, which is a duty we take literally.

When you work with an agent, ask for their registration. When an agent tells you something about a project that is not on the TNRERA page or in the agreement, ask them to put it in writing. A good agent will not mind.

When something does go wrong

What does a buyer actually do when a registered project slips, or a developer will not fix a leak? The Act gives you a route, and it is designed to be used without a battalion of lawyers.

A complaint about a breach of the Act, the rules or the regulations goes to TNRERA itself, and can be filed by an allottee, an association of allottees or any other aggrieved person. Where the claim is for compensation – for a delay, a defect or a false statement in the project's disclosures – it is heard by the adjudicating officer appointed under the Act. Either side can appeal an order to the Real Estate Appellate Tribunal, within the time the Act allows.

Two practical points. First, the strength of a complaint is the paper behind it: the registered agreement, the payment receipts, the dated emails, the photographs of the defect with the date on them. Start collecting them on the day you book, not on the day you are angry. Second, an association of allottees speaking together carries more weight, and costs each family less, than forty separate complaints about the same lift.

A short checklist, before you pay anything

Find the TNRERA registration number and look it up yourself. Do not rely on a screenshot.

Compare the completion date on record with the one you are being sold.

Check the approvals and the authority that granted them.

Read the last two or three quarterly updates.

Compare the carpet area on record with the area in your quote.

Do not pay more than 10 per cent before a registered agreement for sale.

Have the title checked independently. RERA's declaration is a backstop, not a substitute.

Registration is the floor

RERA changed the market because it made developers write things down. The least a buyer can do is look things up. A promise on record can be enforced; a promise in a sales office cannot. That is the whole value of the registration, and it is enormous.

But a floor is not a ceiling. The projects worth buying are the ones that clear the registration easily and then hold up to everything the registration does not check: the title, the ground, the approach road, the area you actually get and the developer's habit of finishing on time.

This is the part of the job we enjoy most, and it is why every deal we work on passes through a legal stage before it closes. If you would like a second pair of eyes on a project you are already considering, or a shortlist of projects whose paperwork we have already read, send us your brief. We will bring the registration number, and the questions it does not answer.