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RERA at Ten: What the 2026 Real Estate Rulebook Actually Protects, and What an NRI Buyer Still Has to Check Themselves

RERA turns ten in 2026 with tighter escrow and delivery rules. What it protects for NRI real estate buyers, where it fails, and the checks to run yourself.

Rakesh Sinha, NRI Finance WriterReviewed 28 May 202615 min read

A reader in Toronto sent me a one-line message in April 2026: "The builder says the project is RERA-registered, so I am protected, right?" He had paid a 20% booking amount on an under-construction tower in Pune, sight unseen, on the strength of a glossy brochure and a registration number printed at the bottom. He wanted to know whether that number meant he could stop worrying.

The honest answer is that the number means a great deal and also less than he hoped. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act turned ten in 2026, and over that decade it has genuinely changed the odds for a property buyer in India, an NRI most of all. It has also been called "disappointing" by the Supreme Court of India, in March 2025, for uneven enforcement across states. Both statements are true. A RERA registration number is a real protection and an incomplete one, and the gap between what the law promises and what a given state authority delivers is exactly where a remote NRI buyer gets hurt.

The 30-second answer: RERA, in force since 2017, protects any buyer of a registered project, NRI included, through five core mechanisms: mandatory project registration with the state authority, 70% of buyer funds ring-fenced in a project escrow account drawn only against certified construction, pricing on carpet area not super built-up area, a committed possession date with interest payable on delay, and a complaint route targeting resolution in about 60 days. The 2026 tightening, sometimes branded "RERA 2.0," pushes third-party escrow audits, higher delay penalties, broader "ongoing project" definitions and suo moto enforcement. But RERA covers only registered projects above the threshold, not resale, not developer solvency, and enforcement varies sharply by state. For an NRI buying remotely, RERA is the floor of due diligence, not the ceiling. Verify the registration on the state portal yourself, get the TDS rule right by seller type, and plan the repatriation path before you buy.

This is a news-analysis piece, so the figures and the reform proposals move and several of the "RERA 2.0" items are proposals rather than enacted law; I flag which is which. What follows is what RERA actually protects, mechanism by mechanism, what changed in 2025 and 2026, the state-by-state variation that the brochures never mention, and a practical checklist for an NRI buyer covering registration verification, the TDS trap that depends on who you buy from, power of attorney, and repatriation at exit. The mechanics of buying, selling and being taxed live in the dedicated guides linked throughout and at the end; this piece is about what the rulebook does and does not cover.

What RERA actually protects, mechanism by mechanism

RERA is not a vague promise of "transparency." It is five concrete obligations on a developer, and it helps to know each one as a lever you can pull.

Registration. A developer cannot advertise, market, book or sell any unit in a project above the threshold, generally 500 square metres of land or more than eight apartments, without first registering the project with the state RERA authority and obtaining a registration number. That number is not decorative. It is tied to a public page on the state portal listing the approved plans, the layout, the committed completion date, the litigation history and quarterly progress updates. An unregistered project that should be registered is, by itself, a red flag that should end the conversation. Project registrations crossed roughly 1.6 lakh nationwide by May 2026, up from about 1.4 lakh in January 2025, so most legitimate developers are inside the system.

The 70% escrow. This is the single most important protection and the one NRIs underrate. The developer must deposit 70% of the money collected from buyers of a project into a separate escrow account dedicated to that project alone. Money can be withdrawn only to cover construction and land cost for that project, and each withdrawal has to be certified jointly by the project's engineer, architect and a chartered accountant in proportion to the construction completed. The account is audited annually and the report filed with the authority. The point of this rule is to stop the old game where a developer collected money on Project A, spent it launching Project B, and left Project A as a half-built hole in the ground. The 2026 reform push, the cluster of proposals branded "RERA 2.0," would add third-party audits and regular fund-utilisation reports on top of this; treat that as a proposal under discussion, not settled law, until your state notifies it.

Carpet area clarity. Before RERA, a developer could quote a price on "super built-up area," a number that bundled in your share of the lobby, the lift shaft, the staircase and the clubhouse, so that a flat sold as 1,200 square feet might give you 800 square feet to actually live in. RERA forces pricing and disclosure on carpet area, the net usable floor space inside your walls, covering the rooms, kitchen, bathrooms and internal balconies but excluding external walls and common areas. For an NRI who cannot walk the site with a measuring tape, this single definition is what makes the price comparable across projects and the brochure honest about what you are buying.

Delivery timelines. The developer commits to a possession date at registration, and if they miss it, they owe the buyer interest on the amount paid for every month of delay, at a prescribed rate (commonly the State Bank of India marginal cost of funds lending rate plus 2%). The buyer can also choose to withdraw and demand a full refund with interest. In May 2025, Uttar Pradesh RERA warned developers against handing over "canvas flats," meaning units delivered without essential fittings dressed up as complete, with penalties of up to 5% of project cost, which is the delivery-quality principle being enforced in practice.

The complaint mechanism. A buyer who faces delayed possession, a deviation from the approved plan, a structural defect within the warranty period, or false advertising can file a complaint directly with the state RERA authority, in most states now through an online portal with document upload and case tracking. The statutory target is resolution within about 60 days, and several states, Haryana, Gujarat and Karnataka among them, strengthened their online grievance systems through 2025. Appeals go to the state Real Estate Appellate Tribunal. This is a far cheaper and faster route than the civil courts the buyer had before 2017, and an NRI can pursue it through a power of attorney holder or, increasingly, online.

What changed in 2025 and 2026

The decade mark brought both real enforcement and a lot of proposal-stage noise, and it is worth separating them.

On the enforcement side, the most consequential single event was the Supreme Court's March 2025 observation that RERA's performance had been "disappointing," with the Court pressing for stricter enforcement, faster dispute resolution and more uniform functioning across states. That is not a new rule, but it is the apex court putting weight behind the law's original intent, and it has pushed several state authorities to clear backlogs and tighten monitoring. By May 2026 the system had handled well over 1.21 lakh complaints nationwide, a real volume that tells you the complaint route is used and is not theoretical.

On the proposal side sits the cluster the industry press calls "RERA 2.0." The recurring items are: third-party audits and regular fund-utilisation reporting on top of the existing escrow rule; higher compensation and interest payouts for delayed possession; an expanded definition of "ongoing projects" to close the loophole where developers claimed a project pre-dated the law and so escaped registration; and a power for authorities to take suo moto action, meaning to act against an erring developer without waiting for a buyer to complain. These are sensible and several states are moving on pieces of them, but as of mid-2026 most are proposals or partial state notifications rather than a single enacted central amendment. If a developer or broker tells you "RERA 2.0 now guarantees X," ask them to point to the notified rule in your state. Often they cannot.

The state-by-state reality the brochures skip

Here is the part that matters most for an NRI and that no marketing deck will tell you: RERA is a central law implemented by state authorities, and the quality of that implementation varies enormously. The Act is uniform on paper. The enforcement is not.

Maharashtra is the strongest. MahaRERA crossed 50,000 registered projects by May 2025, close to 35% of all RERA registrations in the country, and it runs an active authority and a functioning Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal that publishes orders. A complaint filed in Maharashtra has a realistic path to a decision. Karnataka, Gujarat and Haryana have meaningfully improved their online grievance systems. Uttar Pradesh has shown teeth on delivery quality with the canvas-flat warning. But several states run authorities that are slow, understaffed, or in some cases were not fully constituted as standalone bodies for years, and in those states the same statutory 60-day target is closer to aspiration than reality, with appellate tribunals carrying real pendency.

The practical effect for an NRI is that the value of your RERA protection depends heavily on which state your property is in. A registered project in Maharashtra and a registered project in a weakly governed state carry the same number but not the same enforceability. This is not a reason to avoid property; it is a reason to factor the state's enforcement record into where you buy and to weight branded, listed developers more heavily in weaker-enforcement states, because their reputational stake substitutes, imperfectly, for the regulator's.

A worked checklist: an NRI buying an under-construction flat

Let me run the reader from Toronto through what I told him, as a checklist, because abstract rules do not protect anyone.

Step 1: Verify the registration yourself, on the state portal, not the brochure. Take the registration number and look it up directly on the state RERA website (for example, maharera.maharashtra.gov.in for Maharashtra). Confirm the project name, the developer, the approved layout, the committed completion date, the quarterly progress updates and any litigation flags all match what you were told. A number printed on a brochure proves nothing until you have seen the live page. If the project is below the threshold or simply not listed, stop.

Step 2: Read the escrow and the agreement, not the marketing. Confirm the project has a designated escrow account and that the builder-buyer agreement uses the RERA model form, quotes price on carpet area, states the possession date, and specifies the delay-interest rate. Refuse any "assured return" clause; a guaranteed return on a residential purchase is a red flag bordering on a fraud marker, not a feature, and I have written separately on why those pitches fail. The honest mechanics of the purchase itself sit in the guide to buying property in India as an NRI.

Step 3: Get the TDS right, and notice it depends on the seller, not on you. This is where buyers, NRI and resident alike, walk into a penalty. If you buy from a builder or any resident seller above Rs 50 lakh, you deduct 1% TDS under Section 194-IA on the full consideration. But if you buy a resale flat from another NRI, Section 194-IA does not apply at all. You must deduct under Section 195 at the seller's capital-gains rate, which for long-term property after July 23, 2024 is 12.5% plus surcharge and cess on the gain (no indexation in the default route), or up to roughly 30% plus surcharge for a short-term holding, and the deduction is on the full sale price unless the seller produces a lower-deduction certificate under Section 197. The liability for getting this wrong sits with you, the buyer. The full mechanics are in the Section 195 buyer-TDS guide and the 2026 update on the TAN-to-PAN change.

A worked number. Say the Toronto reader instead buys a Rs 2 crore resale flat from an NRI seller who has held it nine years (long-term). Section 195 applies. Absent a lower-deduction certificate, he must withhold 12.5% plus 15% surcharge plus 4% cess on the gross sale price, an effective rate of about 14.95%, so roughly Rs 29,90,000 withheld and deposited, not the small 1% he would owe on a builder purchase. If the seller's actual taxable gain is only Rs 60 lakh, the seller has massively overpaid and must reclaim the excess through a return, which is precisely why a sensible NRI seller obtains the Section 197 certificate first. As the buyer, never accept the seller's casual "just deduct 1%"; on a purchase from an NRI that instruction is wrong and the demand lands on you.

Step 4: Set up the power of attorney correctly. A remote NRI typically executes the registration through a power of attorney holder in India, usually a trusted family member. The PoA must be signed before and notarised by the Indian Embassy or Consulate in your country of residence (or apostilled, depending on the country), then sent to India and, for property transactions, registered with the local sub-registrar. Keep the PoA narrow and specific to this transaction; a broad, general PoA over all your Indian affairs is an unnecessary risk. FEMA compliance remains your responsibility even when the PoA holder signs.

Step 5: Plan repatriation at exit before you pay at entry. The funding source decides the freedom later. If you fund the purchase through inward remittance, an NRE account or an FCNR account, then on sale you can repatriate the proceeds of up to two residential properties freely; a third residential property onward goes through the USD 1 million per financial year route from your NRO account. Commercial property carries no two-property cap. Everything flows only after Indian capital-gains tax and TDS are settled, and the actual transfer needs a chartered accountant's Form 15CB and your Form 15CA filing. If you fund the purchase from rupee savings or an NRO balance instead, you are inside the USD 1 million annual cap from the outset. The detail is in the guide to selling property in India as an NRI.

Edge cases

State variation. As above, a registered project carries different real-world protection depending on the state authority's enforcement. Weight branded developers more heavily where the regulator is weak, and treat Maharashtra-grade enforcement as the exception, not the norm. Read the project's litigation tab on the portal; a developer with a string of RERA orders against them is telling you something.

Under-construction versus ready-to-move. RERA's strongest protections, the escrow, the delivery timeline, the delay interest, exist precisely because you are paying for something not yet built. A ready-to-move, completed project with an occupancy certificate sits largely outside ongoing RERA project monitoring, because there is nothing left to monitor; what protects you there is the title, the OC, and the completion certificate, not the registration. So the registration number matters most for under-construction, while for a ready flat your due diligence shifts to title search, encumbrance certificate and the occupancy certificate. Do not assume "RERA-registered" means the same thing in both cases.

Resale and the regulatory gap. RERA regulates the primary sale from a developer. It does not regulate the resale market between two individuals at all. When you buy a resale flat, there is no escrow, no RERA delivery obligation and no RERA complaint route against the individual seller; your protections are contractual and under general property law, and your tax exposure runs through Section 195 if the seller is an NRI. A large share of NRI purchases are resale, and many buyers wrongly assume RERA covers them. It does not. Treat resale as a different risk category requiring full title and tax diligence.

The closing read

RERA at ten has done what it set out to do in the markets that took it seriously: it ring-fenced buyer money, forced honest carpet-area pricing, put a clock on delivery, and gave buyers a complaint route that is faster and cheaper than the courts. For an NRI buying remotely, those are not small things, and a RERA registration number genuinely lowers your risk. But the Supreme Court called the implementation disappointing for a reason, and the protection you actually get is uneven by state, absent in resale, silent on the developer's solvency, and only as good as the authority enforcing it.

So my honest answer to the reader in Toronto is the one I would give anyone: the registration number is the floor of your due diligence, not the ceiling. Verify it yourself on the state portal, read the escrow and the agreement rather than the brochure, get the TDS rule right by checking who the seller is, set up a narrow PoA properly, and plan your repatriation path before you wire the first rupee. RERA narrows the odds in your favour. It does not buy the flat for you, and it does not do the checking. That part is still yours.

Related guides

This guide is general information dated May 2026 and not personal financial, tax or legal advice. RERA is a central law implemented by state authorities, and rules, thresholds, registration thresholds and enforcement practice vary by state and change over time; several "RERA 2.0" measures described here are proposals or partial state notifications, not settled central law. Tax rates, TDS provisions and FEMA repatriation limits are stated as understood for 2026 and are subject to amendment. Verify the project registration on the relevant state RERA portal, confirm the applicable TDS section by seller type, and consult a qualified chartered accountant and a property lawyer before transacting.

Frequently asked questions

Does RERA protect NRI property buyers in India in 2026?

Yes, RERA applies to any buyer of a registered project regardless of residency, so an NRI gets the same protections as a resident: a project registered with the state authority, 70% of buyer money ring-fenced in a project escrow account that can only be drawn against certified construction progress, price quoted on carpet area rather than super built-up area, a committed possession date with interest payable on delay, and a complaint route to the state RERA with a target resolution of about 60 days. The catch is that RERA only covers projects above the registration threshold (generally 500 square metres or eight units) and only those registered. It does not regulate the resale market, it does not police the developer's solvency, and enforcement quality varies sharply by state. An NRI buying remotely should treat RERA as the floor, not the ceiling, of due diligence.

What TDS applies when an NRI buys property in India in 2026?

It depends entirely on who the seller is, not on the buyer's residency. If you buy from a builder or any resident seller and the price is above Rs 50 lakh, you deduct 1% TDS under Section 194-IA on the full consideration and deposit it. If you buy a resale flat from another NRI, Section 194-IA does not apply at all; you must deduct under Section 195 at the seller's capital-gains rate, which for long-term property after July 23, 2024 is 12.5% plus surcharge and cess on the gain, or up to about 30% plus surcharge for a short-term holding, and crucially the TDS is on the sale price unless the seller obtains a lower-deduction certificate under Section 197. Getting this wrong exposes the buyer, not the seller, to the demand and penalty.

Can an NRI repatriate the proceeds when they sell Indian property?

Yes, within FEMA limits and after Indian tax is paid. If you bought the property with foreign funds routed through an NRE, FCNR or inward remittance, you can repatriate the sale proceeds of up to two residential properties freely; proceeds from a third residential property onward go through the USD 1 million per financial year route from your NRO account. Commercial property has no two-property cap. Everything flows after capital-gains tax and TDS are settled, and the repatriation needs a chartered accountant's Form 15CB and your Form 15CA filing. Plan the repatriation path before you buy, because the funding source at purchase decides the freedom at exit.

Rakesh Sinha, NRI Finance Writer

Rakesh Sinha is a technology professional and an NRI since 2016. He holds a master’s from Carnegie Mellon University and a BTech in Computer Science from IIT Guwahati, and has worked at Microsoft, Cisco, InMobi and Google across Bengaluru, the United States and London. He has personally navigated the decisions these guides cover: moving foreign salary and tech-company RSUs across borders, opening NRE, NRO and FCNR accounts, filing Indian returns as a non-resident, and claiming DTAA relief between the US, UK and India. How these guides are written and reviewed.

Disclaimer: This guide is educational and general in nature. It is not individual financial, tax, or legal advice. Tax and FEMA rules change and your situation may differ, so confirm specifics with a qualified chartered accountant or financial adviser before acting. See our editorial standards for how these guides are researched, reviewed and updated.