RERA Services in Raipur, Chhattisgarh

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 changed how real estate projects are financed, marketed and accounted for. A promoter can no longer collect from buyers and spend as it sees fit: seventy per cent of what is realised goes into a project-specific account, withdrawals require professional certification, progress must be reported to the authority every quarter, and the project's accounts are audited annually and put on public record.

Much of that machinery runs through a Chartered Accountant. Certification for withdrawal, the annual audit of project accounts, and the financial documents required at registration are all work only a Chartered Accountant can do — which means RERA compliance is not something a promoter can manage alone or delegate to a filing agent.

We advise promoters, developers and real estate agents in Raipur, Naya Raipur and across Chhattisgarh on registration with the state authority and on the compliance that follows it.

Projects. Registration with the Chhattisgarh authority is required before a project is advertised, marketed, booked or sold, where either:

the area of land proposed to be developed exceeds 500 square metres, or

the number of apartments proposed, across all phases, exceeds eight

Both residential and commercial projects are covered. The thresholds are alternatives, not cumulative — a small plot with nine units requires registration just as a large plot with two does.

Exemptions are narrow. A project falls outside registration where the land does not exceed 500 square metres and the apartments do not exceed eight, where a completion certificate was obtained before the Act commenced, or where the work is renovation, repair or redevelopment that does not involve fresh marketing, advertising, selling or new allotment. Promoters sometimes assume a project is exempt because it is small; the threshold is lower than most expect.

Real estate agents. An agent must be registered before facilitating the sale or purchase of any unit in a registered project. Registration is not optional and is not confined to large brokerages — it applies to anyone acting as an agent, and the penalty for operating without it accrues daily.

This is the point at which most promoters first need a Chartered Accountant, and it comes earlier than they expect. In addition to the documents required nationally, the Chhattisgarh Rules call for financial material with the registration application, including:

the audited balance sheet of the promoter for the preceding financial year

the promoter's income tax returns for the three preceding financial years

the legal title deed for the land

details of open parking areas in the project

A promoter whose accounts are not audited, or whose returns for earlier years were never filed, cannot complete the application until that is put right. We see this most often with promoters incorporating a new entity for a project, or with family concerns that have operated informally. It is worth establishing the position months before an application, not weeks.

Alongside these, we advise on the accounting structure a promoter needs in order to comply at all — project-wise books, a designated account per project, and records capable of supporting a percentage-of-completion assessment. Promoters running several projects through common accounts almost always have to separate them before any certificate can be issued, and that is easier done early.

The designated account. Seventy per cent of amounts realised from allottees goes into a separate account in a scheduled bank for that project, and is applied only to the cost of land and the cost of construction of that project.

Certified withdrawals. Money leaves that account only on certification by an engineer, an architect and a Chartered Accountant that the withdrawal is in proportion to the percentage of completion.

The ten per cent limit on advances. No more than ten per cent of the cost of an apartment, plot or building may be taken as advance or application money before an agreement for sale is entered into.

Quarterly progress updates to the authority, published on its website, covering construction status and the position on bookings and approvals.

Annual audit of project accounts, within six months of the year end, verifying that project funds were used for that project and that withdrawals matched completion.

Interest on delay. Where possession is delayed beyond the agreed date, the promoter is liable to pay interest for the period of delay, and an allottee who chooses to withdraw is entitled to a refund with interest.

Failing to register a project exposes the promoter to a penalty of up to ten per cent of the estimated cost of the project, and continued default can attract further penalty and imprisonment. On any project of scale, ten per cent is not a fine that can be absorbed.

Failing to register as an agent attracts a penalty accruing at ₹10,000 for each day the default continues.

Contravening the designated account requirements is a breach of Section 4, attracting penalty under the Act, and is precisely what the annual audit is designed to expose.

Beyond the amounts, two practical consequences bite harder. An unregistered project cannot lawfully be advertised or sold, so the default stops the business rather than merely costing money. And the authority's records are public, so a default becomes visible to buyers and lenders.

Three of the obligations above can only be discharged by a Chartered Accountant in practice: the withdrawal certificate, the annual audit of project accounts, and the audited balance sheet required at registration. There is no alternative route — a Cost Accountant or Company Secretary cannot issue the RERA certificates, and a filing service cannot audit accounts.

One further point promoters should know at the outset. The Chartered Accountant who certifies withdrawals is generally required to be a different person from the one acting as the promoter's annual auditor, so that the annual audit is a genuine check rather than a review of the same firm's own certificates. A promoter therefore needs two Chartered Accountants for RERA purposes, and it is worth arranging that deliberately rather than discovering it when a certificate is refused.