Maharashtra is considering an amendment to the Registration Act that would cap upfront payments on an agreement to sell at 75-80%, with the remaining balance due only at final registration.
If you've ever bought property in Maharashtra, you'll know there's a real gap between signing an agreement to sell and the flat actually being registered in your name, and a lot can happen to your money in that window. The state government is reportedly considering an amendment to the Registration Act that would cap how much of the total property value a developer can collect upfront under an agreement to sell, at somewhere between 75% and 80%, with the remaining balance due only when the final registration takes place.
You might already know that MahaRERA restricts developers from collecting more than 10% of a flat's cost before a registered agreement for sale is signed, a protection that's been in place for years. What this new proposal appears to target is a different, later stage: the gap between that initial agreement and final registration of the sale deed, a period during which some developers have reportedly pushed buyers to pay 70-80% or more of the total cost well before registration, using construction milestones or informal market practice as justification. If accurate, this amendment would close that later-stage gap rather than duplicate the existing rule.
In practice, if this becomes law, you'd have more legal room to hold back a meaningful chunk of your payment, likely in the 20-25% range, until the property is actually registered in your name. That's a real shift in leverage: right now, once you've paid the bulk of the cost, your incentive to push a developer toward timely registration weakens considerably, since most of your money is already out the door regardless of what happens next.
This isn't happening in a vacuum. Maharashtra has been steadily tightening its registration and documentation framework, including a 2023 amendment to the Registration Act that added new restrictions on what documents can be registered at all, aimed at preventing transactions that violate legal provisions or compromise public interest. A cap on upfront agreement-to-sell payments would fit that same broader direction: using the registration process itself as a lever to protect buyers, rather than relying solely on RERA complaint mechanisms after something's already gone wrong.
Mumbai's registration volumes and property values make it the market where a rule like this would probably matter most in absolute terms. If you're currently comparing options across Hommea's Mumbai listings, it's worth keeping an eye on how this proposal develops, since a lower payment cap could change how developers structure payment schedules on new launches even before the law is formally passed, some may get ahead of it voluntarily to stay competitive.
Worth being upfront here: at this stage, this is a proposal being considered, not a passed law, and several practical details, the exact legislative timeline, enforcement mechanism, and whether it applies retroactively to existing agreements, aren't yet confirmed in available reporting.
