RERA, but make it readable: the only 7 fields that matter before you sign.

The RERA portal in your state — HARERA for Haryana, UP-RERA for Noida and Greater Noida, and so on — is the most under-used piece of consumer protection in Indian real estate. Every registered project has a public filing. Most buyers never read it.

This is partly the buyer's fault and partly the regulator's. The filings are 40+ pages long, structured for legal compliance rather than reader comprehension, and full of fields like "approved height of structure" that don't help a flat-shopper at all.

But there are seven fields that actually matter. If you read these seven, you'll catch 80% of the risk that ends up in builder-buyer arbitration cases. Skip the rest.

1. Promoter's name — and the matching company filing

The first thing the RERA filing tells you is the legal entity that owns the project. Not the brand name on the hoarding. If the marketing materials say "DLF Camellias" but the RERA promoter is some SPV ("Camellias Realty Pvt Ltd"), check the SPV's MCA filings. How long has the SPV existed? What's its capital base? Does it own any other completed projects?

Most builder defaults trace back to thinly capitalised SPVs that the parent group walks away from when the project goes south. The RERA filing names the SPV; it can't tell you the parent's commitment to honour SPV obligations. That's a separate diligence step.

2. Project status: "ongoing" vs "completed"

This is a binary field. "Completed" means the project has received its Occupancy Certificate (OC). "Ongoing" means it has not. The legal and financial implications are wildly different.

For an ongoing project, the builder is still in possession of the asset, and your booking is closer to a future contract than a property purchase. For a completed project, you're buying a real, deliverable flat with a registered title transferable to you.

3. Proposed completion date vs. revised completion date

Every RERA filing has both. The proposed date was filed at registration. The revised date is whatever the builder has updated it to since. Take the gap between them and call it the project's "slip" — that's your most honest signal of execution credibility.

A slip of 6 months is normal. A slip of 18 months is a yellow flag. A slip of 36+ months means the builder has been kicking the can down the road for years and your possession date is fictional. Don't trust the marketing brochure on this; trust the RERA field.

4. Sanctioned bank loan

The RERA filing lists the project's construction loan — the bank's name, the sanctioned amount, and the security charge. This tells you two things:

• Whether a real bank under-wrote the project. If the only loan is from a small NBFC at 14%+, that's a signal the major banks didn't get comfortable.
• How leveraged the project is. If the loan is more than 60% of the project's revenue potential, the builder has narrow margins and any market hiccup will hurt buyers.

5. Land title chain

The filing includes a section on the title of the underlying land — when it was acquired, from whom, and any encumbrances. If the title was acquired in the last 24 months, look harder. New land often comes with disputes that haven't surfaced yet. Old, settled land is safer.

Disputes you can spot from the filing: pending litigation flagged in encumbrances, agricultural land that's been recently converted (look for the conversion order date), and any "leasehold" rather than "freehold" notation.

6. Approved plan vs. revised plan

The original sanctioned plan and any revisions are both on file. How many revisions has the project gone through? A project on its 4th plan revision has had its layout, tower count, or specifications changed — and your booking is based on whichever version was current the day you signed.

Builders revise to add saleable area (FSI/FAR squeeze) or because the original execution failed. Either way, three or more revisions is a meaningful flag. Pull the revision history.

7. Complaints filed against the promoter

This is the field most buyers don't know exists. Every state RERA portal lists complaints filed against each promoter, by complaint type and disposition. Three open complaints is normal at scale. Twenty open complaints is a pattern.

Read a few of the complaints in detail. They'll tell you what the promoter actually does when things go wrong — refunds, settlements, or stonewalling. That's far more informative than the marketing brochure's claim of "premium service".

The 30-minute review

You can do all seven of these in under 30 minutes per project, including waiting for the portal to load. Compared to an EMI you'll pay for 20 years, that's the cheapest piece of work in the entire homebuying process.

If the broker discourages you from looking at the RERA filing — "sir, the filing is just a formality, I'll explain everything" — that's the strongest signal of all. Keep reading.