Delay under RERA runs from the date in the agreement for sale, not from the date the project was registered

Section 18(1)(a) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 fixes liability by reference to the terms of the agreement for sale and the date specified in it. The completion date a promoter declares to the authority at registration, and any extension of that registration, belong to a different obligation and do not move the date from which interest for delay is counted. Two decisions of the Bombay High Court in 2026 applied that distinction, and both ran the clock from the agreement.

Almost every argument a promoter makes about delay is an attempt to move that one date, so it is worth setting out where it comes from.

Which date does section 18 actually use?

Section 18(1) opens on the promoter who fails to complete or is unable to give possession of an apartment, plot or building, and clause (a) describes that failure as one "in accordance with the terms of the agreement for sale or, as the case may be, duly completed by the date specified therein". The Act sets no construction period of its own. It takes the date the parties wrote down and attaches consequences to it.

Two things follow for a file. The agreement for sale is the operative document, so a date in a brochure, an allotment letter, a booking receipt or an email from the sales office does not start the clock unless the agreement carries it. And because the date is contractual, the clause that supplies it is read as a whole: a grace period written into the possession clause is part of the date specified in the agreement, while a grace period a promoter asserts at the hearing is not.

The second date, and why it is not the one

A registered project carries a completion date of a different kind. Section 4(2)(l)(C) requires the promoter, when applying for registration, to declare "the time period within which he undertakes to complete the project or phase thereof, as the case may be". That declaration is a promise to the authority. It is what the authority polices, what the registration certificate records, and what section 6 allows to be extended, on force majeure, "for such time as it considers necessary, which shall, in aggregate, not exceed a period of one year".

The two dates answer to different obligations, and promoters routinely offer the later one as the date delay should run from. In CCI Projects Private Limited v. Sriram Krishnan (Bombay High Court, 18 June 2026) the court held that the possession date in the agreement governed the computation of interest, and declined to substitute the completion date carried by the project's registration. The agreement had specified 30 June 2017 and the registration recorded 31 December 2019, and the court treated the contractual date as the one that mattered. An extension under section 6 operates on the registration, not on the bargain, so it protects a promoter from regulatory consequences without touching the allottee's right to interest.

What stops the clock?

The proviso to section 18(1) is the half that matters to an allottee who is still waiting. Where the allottee does not intend to withdraw from the project, the promoter must pay "interest for every month of delay, till the handing over of the possession, at such rate as may be prescribed". The rate comes from the state rules made under the Act, so the arithmetic changes with the State while the trigger does not.

Handing over possession is a fact, and the fact has a legal condition attached. In Rare Township Private Limited v. Saji Mathews (Bombay High Court, 15 April 2026) the court worked with possession coupled with the occupation certificate as the point at which the obligation is discharged, and described the allottee's right to interest under sections 18 and 19(4) as an absolute one. An offer of possession of an apartment that cannot lawfully be occupied is therefore a weak answer to a delay claim, and the date of the offer letter is not by itself the date the interest stops.

Force majeure, and when it is too late to rely on it

Force majeure is where a delay defence usually goes, and its timing decides whether it is available at all. In CCI Projects the court declined to give the promoter the benefit of the pandemic, because the contractual due date had already passed when the pandemic arrived, so performance was overdue before the event relied on occurred. An event that postdates the breach does not excuse it. Section 6 is the route the Act does provide, and it is bounded: an extension is granted by the authority, for recorded reasons, and it cannot exceed a year in the aggregate however many applications are made.

Withdraw, or wait and charge interest

Section 18(1) offers the allottee two routes and the choice belongs to the allottee. One is to withdraw, in which case the promoter is liable on demand to return the amount received in respect of the apartment, plot or building, with interest at the prescribed rate, including compensation in the manner the Act provides. The other is to stay in the project and take interest for every month of delay until possession is handed over. The second route is not a waiver of the first, and an allottee who waits is not treated as having accepted the delay.

Sub-sections (2) and (3) sit behind both. Sub-section (2) deals with loss caused by a defective title to the land, and says that a claim for compensation under it is not barred by limitation under any other law. Sub-section (3) attaches compensation to a failure to discharge any other obligation under the Act, the rules or the regulations, or under the terms of the agreement for sale.

What a file needs before the date is argued

The possession clause of the registered agreement for sale, with any grace period, and whether the agreement follows the form the state rules prescribe. The registration certificate and every extension granted under section 6, with the reasons recorded. The occupation certificate, and its date against the date possession was offered. The payment history, because a refund claim under the first limb of section 18(1) runs on amounts received. And the rate the state rules prescribe, which is what converts the months into a figure.

When section 18 began to bind

The Act commenced in two stages, and section 18 was in the later one. The notification S.O. 1544(E) dated 26 April 2016 brought the Act into force on 1 May 2016 while excepting sections 3 to 19, 40, 59 to 70, 79 and 80, so the chapter containing section 18 was not law on that day. Those provisions were brought into force on 1 May 2017. Projects that were ongoing on that date came within the Act through the registration requirement rather than through any saving of earlier timetables, which is why an agreement signed well before 2016 can still produce a section 18 claim.