This is a general guide to a buyer’s rights when a flat is handed over after the date in the agreement. It is not a comment on any particular project. Codename Vybe has not published a possession date, and nothing here suggests it will be late. The point of knowing these rules is that you read your agreement with them in mind before you sign, not after a date has passed.
What Section 18 gives you
Section 18(1) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 applies when a promoter fails to complete, or cannot give possession of, a flat in line with the agreement for sale, or by the date it specifies. The buyer then has a choice, and Section 19(4) states the same right from the buyer’s side.
| If you… | You are entitled to |
|---|---|
| Withdraw from the project | A refund of everything paid for the flat, with interest at the prescribed rate, plus compensation under the Act |
| Stay in the project | Monthly interest on the delay, at the prescribed rate, running until the flat is handed over |
Courts have treated this right as firm. In Newtech Promoters and Developers v. State of Uttar Pradesh, decided on 11 November 2021, the Supreme Court described the right to a refund under Section 18(1) as unqualified. On 28 September 2026, Justice Sandeep V. Marne of the Bombay High Court held that the promoter’s duty to refund with interest is absolute, that neither MahaRERA nor the Appellate Tribunal can dilute it with concessions such as waiting for an occupancy certificate, and that the Supreme Court’s findings on the point are binding, Lawyer E News reported that month.
The interest rate in Maharashtra
In Maharashtra the “prescribed rate” comes from Rule 18 of the 2017 RERA rules: take the highest MCLR, the marginal cost of lending rate, that SBI publishes, and add two percentage points. The same rate applies in the other direction, when a buyer pays an instalment late, under Section 19(7). So if SBI’s highest MCLR stood at 9%, the rate would be 11% a year; check SBI’s published MCLR for the period of your delay.
Three practical points follow from recent decisions and commentary:
- It runs from the agreed date. Advocate Shirish Deshpande of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat wrote in the Free Press Journal in October 2025 that interest becomes payable after the possession date and any grace period in the agreement, month by month.
- It is on what you have paid. In a December 2025 order reported by Square Feat India, MahaRERA awarded interest on the amount the buyers had paid by the agreed date, from the day after that date until the occupancy certificate.
- Your agreement’s date is the one that counts. The same order held that the possession date in the individual agreement prevails over a later completion date shown on the project’s MahaRERA page.
Force majeure and extensions
Section 6 of the Act lets MahaRERA extend a project’s registration for force majeure. The definition is narrow: war, or an earthquake, cyclone, flood, drought, fire or other natural calamity that affects the project’s regular development. Extensions granted this way are capped at one year in all.
Two recent examples show how this works. MahaRERA’s Order 14 of May 2020 treated 15 March to 14 September 2020 as a force majeure period for Covid-19. In 2026, after a Finance Ministry memorandum of 29 April classed the West Asia situation as war, the Union housing ministry advised state regulators on 31 July to extend timelines by four months, the Free Press Journal reported that day. MahaRERA then granted an automatic four-month extension to registered projects with completion dates on or after 28 February 2026, according to Punekar News on 7 August 2026.
An extended registration is not the same as a changed possession date in your agreement. In the December 2025 order, MahaRERA rejected the promoter’s Covid argument for the period after Order 14. On the 2026 extension, Advocate Deshpande wrote in the Free Press Journal in August 2026 that the circular covers registration only and declares no interest holiday, while calling the question of whether a war declaration can suspend interest legally untested. Read how your own agreement defines force majeure.
Filing a complaint on MahaRERA
- Collect the paper trail. The registered agreement, payment receipts, the possession clause, every letter and email from the promoter, and a copy of the project’s MahaRERA page.
- Write to the promoter first, asking for possession status and the interest due. Keep it factual and dated.
- Consider conciliation. MahaRERA runs a conciliation process under Section 32(g) of the Act. Terms agreed there are recorded as a MahaRERA order and can be enforced without a fresh complaint, according to a Free Press Journal column of May 2026.
- File a complaint under Section 31 on MahaRERA’s online portal: register as a complainant, fill in the form, upload your documents and pay the fee shown. We could not verify the current fee from an official source, so check it on the portal.
- Seek compensation separately if needed. Under Section 71, compensation claims under Sections 12, 14, 18 and 19 are decided by an adjudicating officer who is or has been a District Judge.
- Appeal within 60 days. Section 44 allows an appeal to the Appellate Tribunal within 60 days of receiving a copy of the order.
Practical steps from the day you book
- Note the possession date and any grace period in the agreement, and keep them somewhere you will see them.
- Check the project’s MahaRERA page every quarter. Section 11(1) requires the promoter to update the project’s status there quarterly.
- Keep paying instalments on time unless you have taken legal advice; late payments attract interest at the same rate.
- Read any letter asking you to accept a new date carefully, and take advice before you sign it.
- When possession does come, maintenance starts too, as covered in the article on maintenance charges.
No MahaRERA number has yet been published for Codename Vybe. Once one is, the project page will show the completion date the promoter declares, and the developers’ earlier projects can be looked up on MahaRERA in the same way. If you would like a note from us once the number is out, register your interest here.
