RERA Compliance Checklist for Builders in India: The 2026 Guide

Quick answer: RERA compliance for a builder means registering every project before you advertise or sell, depositing 70 percent of buyer collections in a separate project account, filing quarterly progress updates, and issuing demand letters only against certified construction milestones. Miss any of these and you risk penalties up to 5 percent of project cost. This checklist walks through what a builder in India must do in 2026, and how a real estate CRM keeps the paper trail audit ready.

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) changed how projects are sold in India. For a builder, it is no longer enough to launch, advertise, and collect. Every stage of the sale now has a compliance obligation attached to it, and each state RERA authority audits the trail. This is a practical 2026 checklist for builders and their sales and finance teams, organised by project stage.

What RERA compliance actually covers

RERA obligations fall into four buckets: project registration, financial discipline (the 70 percent rule), periodic disclosure, and buyer-facing documentation. A builder can be fully compliant on construction and still be flagged in an audit if the documentation trail (demand letters, allotment letters, receipts) does not line up with certified milestones. That is why compliance is as much a records problem as a construction one.

Stage 1: Before you launch or advertise

• Register the project with your state RERA authority (MahaRERA, GujRERA, K-RERA, etc.) before any advertisement, brochure, or booking. Selling an unregistered project is the single most common violation.
• Obtain the RERA registration number and display it on every advertisement, hoarding, website listing, and brochure.
• Register your promoter and, where required, your agents/channel partners with the authority. Many states require the channel partner to hold their own RERA agent registration.
• Publish the mandated project details on the authority portal: approved plans, layout, carpet area definitions, amenities, and the declared completion date.

Because the registration number must appear on all outbound material, it helps to store it once in your CRM at the project level and merge it into every quote, cost sheet, and letter automatically. Makanify's project management keeps project-level RERA data in one place so it is never mistyped on a document.

Stage 2: The 70 percent rule and the separate account

RERA requires that 70 percent of the amounts collected from buyers for a project be deposited in a separate bank account, to be used only for construction and land cost of that project. Withdrawals must be in proportion to construction completion and certified by an engineer, an architect, and a chartered accountant.

• Maintain the designated project account and never co-mingle buyer collections across projects.
• Withdraw only against certified completion percentages.
• Keep the CA, engineer, and architect certificates on file for every withdrawal. In the annual audit these are matched against your collections.

The link most builders miss: your collections record has to reconcile with what you demanded from buyers. If demand letters were issued for milestones that were not yet certified, the audit gets qualified. Automating demand letters against certified milestones closes that gap. See our full guide to demand letter automation for Indian builders and the payment plans and collections feature for how the milestone-to-demand link is enforced.

Stage 3: Quarterly and annual disclosures

• File quarterly updates on the authority portal: construction progress, status of approvals, and inventory sold versus available.
• Submit the annual audit report certified by a practising chartered accountant (commonly referenced as the Form 3 CA certificate in several states).
• Keep your sold/unsold inventory numbers accurate and current. A mismatch between your portal disclosure and your actual bookings is a red flag.

Quarterly disclosure is far easier when your live inventory (tower, block, floor, unit) already sits in the CRM. Makanify's booking and inventory gives you sold-versus-available figures on demand instead of rebuilding them from spreadsheets every quarter.

Stage 4: Buyer-facing documents

Every document you issue to a buyer is a compliance artefact. The recurring audit findings here are missing fields and dates that do not match milestones.

• Allotment letter: issued on booking, with unit, carpet area, price breakup, and payment plan.
• Agreement for sale: the RERA-mandated agreement, executed before collecting more than 10 percent of the property price.
• Demand letters: issued only against reached and certified milestones, with GST shown separately.
• Receipts and possession letters: sequenced and cross-referenced to the booking.

RERA-aligned document automation removes the manual re-typing that causes these findings. Makanify's documents and compliance module generates each letter from the project and booking record, so fields cannot drift.

The 2026 builder RERA compliance checklist

Use this as a pre-launch and quarterly review list.

1. Project registered and RERA number obtained before any marketing.
2. RERA number on every ad, brochure, hoarding, and web listing.
3. Agents and channel partners registered where the state requires it.
4. Separate 70 percent project account operational, no co-mingling.
5. Withdrawals only against CA, engineer, and architect certified completion.
6. Quarterly progress and inventory disclosures filed on time.
7. Annual CA-certified audit report submitted.
8. Allotment letters, agreements for sale, and demand letters issued in the correct sequence with matching dates.
9. GST shown separately on every demand.
10. Complete, retrievable document trail per booking for audit.

How a real estate CRM makes RERA compliance routine

Compliance fails at the seams between sales, finance, and construction. A purpose-built real estate CRM keeps those teams on one record: the project holds the RERA number and payment plan, the booking holds the buyer and unit, and documents generate from both. When the auditor asks for the trail, it is one export rather than a week of reconstruction. That is the core of why Indian builders move to a CRM built for real estate developers rather than a generic tool.

If you want to see RERA-aligned documents, milestone-linked demand letters, and quarterly-ready inventory in one place, book a free Makanify demo. A specialist will walk through it on your project structure.

This article is a general compliance guide, not legal advice. RERA rules and forms vary by state and are updated periodically. Always confirm current requirements with your state RERA authority and a qualified professional.