And the reason is the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 becomes effective across all states from 1st May 2017. This means every state has to establish a Regulatory Authority by that date. But Regulatory Authority will have another three months to frame the rules and regulations.

RERA is not applicable to those projects that have the Occupancy Certificate as on the date of notification. This is for the projects which are near to completion stage and are able to get the Occupancy Certificate. For projects where the Occupancy Certificate has already been issued, the developer doesn’t need to go for its registration.

All the ongoing projects which have not yet received the Occupancy Certificate from the local body will come under the operational area of RERA. In the meantime, several builders of ongoing projects are busy arranging the Occupancy Certificate from the local bodies. A possible reason could be that they may not wish their ongoing project to fall under the limit of RERA.

By keeping the ongoing projects under the limit of RERA even the existing buyer who have not yet get possession is benefited.

So, in case they fail to obtain the Occupancy Certificate from the local body before 1st May 2017, they will have to mandatorily get the under construction projects get register within 3 months from 1st May 2017.

Therefore, builders have another 3 months to complete unfinished work and get the Occupancy Certificate to escape the mandatory registration clause.

What is Occupancy Certificate?

OC is issued by the local body permitting occupation of any building, as provided under local laws, which has provision for civic infrastructures like water, electricity, and sanitation. This also certifies that the building has complied with the approved plans. The purpose of obtaining an OC is to prove that, according to the law, the house or building is in liveable condition. As per RERA, once the builder gets the OC it has to be made available to allottees individually or to the association of the allottees.

There are certain points which a developer has to remember in these times when they are in a hurry to expedite completion of construction work, they should make sure that both external and internal construction work is completed before giving possession to buyers.

Similarly, a buyer has to understand the meaning of External Development Work and Internal Development work. As a buyer, one needs to ensure these are met by the builder if they were part of the plan.

External development works include roads, drainage, electricity, water supply, sewage, solid waste management and disposal or any other work which may have to be executed outside the building, as may be provided under the local laws.

Similarly, internal development works indicate towards roads, water supply, parks, tree planting, footpaths, sewers, drains, street lighting or any other work in a project for its benefit, as per sanctioned plans.