Ask about carpet area, delay compensation, the deposit limit, defect liability and where your money is held. Those five cover most of what goes wrong, and the law answers each one. You are checking whether the builder knows the rules.
A sales conversation is where you find that out. The portal tells you a project is registered. It does not tell you how a person behaves when you ask a specific question.
Key Takeaways
- A promoter cannot take more than 10% of the cost before a written, registered agreement for sale.
- Carpet area has a legal definition, and it excludes balconies and external walls.
- If possession is late, the builder owes you interest for every month of delay.
- The builder must fix defects you report within five years, inside thirty days, free.
- 70% of buyer money must sit in a separate bank account for that project.
Why Ask the Builder If RERA Is Already Online?
Because the two tell you different things, and you want both.
The public register on GujRERA shows whether a project is registered, who the promoter is, what was approved and when completion was declared. That is the paperwork side, and how to check a RERA registration covers reading it properly.
What the register cannot show is how the sales team answers a direct question. A builder who quotes the deposit limit back without flinching tells you something the portal never will, and so does one who changes the subject.
Take the questions below to the site office and listen to the answers, not the brochure.
| Ask this | What the law already says |
|---|---|
| Is this the carpet area? | It excludes balconies, external walls and shafts |
| What if possession is late? | Interest for every month of delay |
| How much before the agreement? | No more than 10%, and the agreement must be registered |
| Who fixes defects? | The builder, for 5 years, within 30 days |
| Where is my money held? | 70% in a separate account for that project |
Is This Figure the Carpet Area?
Ask it in those words, because the term has a legal meaning and the advertised number often is not it.
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 defines carpet area as "the net usable floor area of an apartment, excluding the area covered by the external walls, areas under services shafts, exclusive balcony or verandah area and exclusive open terrace area, but includes the area covered by the internal partition walls of the apartment" (RERA Act, 2016_act,_2016.pdf)).
Read that twice before your next site visit, because your balcony and your external walls are both outside the number. Super built-up area, which is what most price lists quote, includes shared space you cannot furnish.
If you are weighing a house instead, the area arithmetic works differently, and villas versus apartments covers that. For a flat, ask for the carpet area in writing, on the price sheet, next to the rate. If the answer arrives as a percentage of something else, you have learned something. 3 BHK versus 4 BHK shows what those numbers mean once you live in them.
What Happens If Possession Is Late?
The builder owes you money, monthly, and does not get to decide otherwise.
Where possession runs past the agreed date and you still want the flat, the Act is direct: the allottee "shall be paid, by the promoter, interest for every month of delay, till the handing over of the possession, at such rate as may be prescribed". If you would rather walk away, the promoter is liable to return what you paid, with interest.
So the question is not whether there is a penalty. It is what date goes into your agreement, and what rate applies. A delay also moves your loan disbursement and your first EMI, which our home loan guide for Gujarat explains.
Ask for the completion date the builder declared to the regulator, then ask what date goes into your agreement for sale. Those two should match, and when they do not, ask why before paying anything.
How Much Can You Take Before the Agreement?
Ten per cent, and not a rupee more. This is the single most useful sentence to carry into a site office.
The Act says a promoter "shall not accept a sum more than ten per cent. of the cost of the apartment, plot, or building as the case may be, as an advance payment or an application fee, from a person without first entering into a written agreement for sale with such person and register the said agreement for sale".
Read the parts people miss. The agreement has to be written, and it has to be registered. A booking form, a receipt and a WhatsApp confirmation are none of those things.
If a builder wants 20% to "hold" a unit before any agreement exists, you know that is not how it works. How they react when you say so is worth more than the discount they offer next.
Who Fixes It If Something Breaks?
The builder does, for five years, within thirty days, at no charge to you.
The Act covers "any structural defect or any other defect in workmanship, quality or provision of services" reported to the promoter "within a period of five years by the allottee from the date of handing over possession". The duty is to "rectify such defects without further charge, within thirty days".
That reframes the snagging conversation. You are asking a builder to confirm an obligation they already carry.
Ask who to contact after possession, and how a complaint gets logged. A builder with a real process names a person or a system. A vague answer here predicts a vague answer later, when it matters more.
Where Does My Money Actually Go?
Into a separate account for that project, most of it, by law.
The Act requires that "seventy per cent. of the amounts realised for the real estate project from the allottees, from time to time, shall be deposited in a separate account to be maintained in a scheduled bank to cover the cost of construction and the land cost and shall be used only for that purpose".
That is what stops your payments funding a different project while yours stalls.
A builder's completed record is part of the same answer, and ours is set out on our about page. You will not be shown the bank statement, and you should not expect to be. What you can do is ask which bank holds the project account, and watch whether the answer is immediate or improvised.
Can I See the Approvals and the Certificates?
Yes, and asking is normal. A builder who treats it as an insult has answered the question.
Ask for the sanctioned plan, the title documents for the land, and the RERA registration number. Ours sits on each project page, including Swarnim Skyline.
One caveat: projects on land no larger than 500 square meters, or with no more than eight apartments, are exempt from registration, so an absent listing is not always a warning sign.
For a completed or nearly complete building, ask for the occupancy certificate. Obtaining that certificate and making it available to buyers is the promoter's responsibility under the Act.
For an under-construction flat, ask what remains and when. The honest answer is often "these three are pending", which is fine. You are testing whether they know it.
Photograph any document you are shown, because memory is a poor record six months later.
What Is Included in the Price, and What Is Not?
Ask for the full list in writing, because this is where the number you were quoted grows.
Parking, club membership, the maintenance deposit, connection charges and the corpus fund are commonly separate. None of it is improper, but all of it matters before you compare two buildings.
Stamp duty and registration sit on top of everything, at 4.9% and 1% in Gujarat (Garvi, Government of Gujarat), calculated on the higher of your transaction value or the jantri value. Our guide to stamp duty and registration charges sets out how that works.
Then ask what the monthly maintenance will be and how it was worked out. A figure with no basis behind it rises sharply once the association takes over.
A Fictional Example of One Question Changing a Deal
The buyer below is invented, and no client details went into this.
A couple visits a site office in west Ahmedabad on a Sunday, having settled on the area using our Bopal and S.G. Highway comparison. The flat suits them, the rate seems fair, and the sales manager asks for 15% to block the unit that week, with the agreement to follow "after the festival".
The husband asks one question: will the agreement for sale be registered before that payment. The answer wanders. They pay nothing, go home, and check the project on the regulator's portal that evening.
The project turns out to be registered and sound. They buy it two months later on a registered agreement, having paid the correct booking amount. Nothing dramatic happened. One question moved the sequence back to the order the law expects.
What Does a Weak Answer Sound Like?
Four patterns, none of which requires any expertise to spot.
The first is the deflection to authority: "everyone in Ahmedabad does it this way". Common practice and legal practice are different things, and only one of them protects you.
The second is the urgent close. A unit that vanishes unless you pay today is a sales technique, applied hardest to buyers who ask questions.
Third is the verbal promise for anything material. If a specification, a date or an inclusion matters to you, it belongs in the agreement. Ours are named in the agreement: JK Lakshmi cement, Electrotherm TMT steel, an RCC frame and Ultratech waterproofing.
Fourth is irritation. A builder confident in their paperwork finds these questions ordinary. Our own ongoing projects are sold on exactly this basis, and you are welcome to test us on it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ten per cent of the cost of the apartment. Above that, the promoter must first enter into a written agreement for sale and register it. A booking receipt is not an agreement for sale.
Usually not. Brochures often quote super built-up area, which includes shared spaces. Carpet area is the net usable floor area, and it excludes balconies, external walls and service shafts.
If you still want the flat, you are entitled to interest for every month of delay until possession. If you want out, the promoter must return your money with interest, at the rate prescribed for your state.
Five years from handover for structural and workmanship defects, with thirty days to rectify once reported, at no cost to you.
The RERA registration number, the sanctioned plan, the land title documents, and the occupancy certificate where the building is complete. Photograph anything you are shown.
Yes. A builder with a long record answers them quickly and without fuss, which is the point. The questions cost nothing, and the answers tell you how the next three years will go.
Sources.
- The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, India Code (section 2(k) carpet area; section 13 the ten per cent and registered agreement rule; section 14 five-year defect liability and thirty-day rectification; section 18 interest for every month of delay; section 4 the seventy per cent separate account; section 11 the promoter's duty to obtain and provide the occupancy certificate), linked in section 2 and quoted again in sections 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7
- Gujarat Real Estate Regulatory Authority, *GujRERA project search*, linked in section 1
- Government of Gujarat, Garvi, *Help for Stamp Duty Calculator* (conveyance at 4.9%, registration fee at 1%), linked in section 8
- Government of Gujarat, *Jantri portal* (the official valuation that stamp duty is calculated against), linked in section 8
*Every provision quoted above was read in the text of the Act itself on India Code. Rates prescribed under the Act, including the interest rate on delay, are set by state rules and change, so confirm the current figure for Gujarat before relying on it.*