By Admin 
Maharera: Real Estate Regulatory Authority i.e. RERA (RERA) has given a verdict that will make a smile on the face of millions of people who are planning to buy a house. Usually, while booking a house or flat, the builder has to pay some money as a booking amount.
According to the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, the booking amount should not be more than 10 percent of the price of the house. Many times people give booking, but later for some reason the booking has to be canceled. In such a situation, the builder is reluctant to refund the booking amount.
Sales manager confident
A similar case has come up from Mumbai. Actually, an NRI couple booked an apartment of Rs 2.27 crore in the Mulund project of Lodha developers in Mumbai. He got his house booked by paying 7 lakh rupees.
During this time, Lodha’s sales manager told him that if his loan does not pass from the bank or there is another type of financial or personal problem, then all the money of the booking will be refunded. Later, when his loan application was rejected, the builder refused to give him a refund. After this, the couple resorted to Maharera (Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority). Eventually the decision was in his right. Maharera asked Lodha developers to return the booking amount.
Lodha developers gave this argument
Let us know that Vaibhav Kishore Ambukar and his wife Seema living in Russia booked a flat in Lodha’s Mulund Project Tower 1. According to the report of Hindustan Times, he paid Rs 7 lakh in two installments in September and October 2021. However, both of them then said that buying a house completely depends on the home loan.
Here, when the loan was not passed, he was not returned to ask for the booking amount back. Lodha developers argued that the booking of the flat was done on November 18, 2021. The booking form included a clause (Claus 3.5) stating that if the buyer cancels the booking, the developer can keep up to 10 percent of the total flat cost, so there is no question of refund.
Maharera said this
In his decision of June 10, 2025 after listening to both sides in turn, Maharera said that there was no official cell agreement between the two, so Maharera found the provision of confiscating the booking amount to ‘unilateral, inappropriate and not implemented’.
Maharera said that denying refund is against the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016. In such a situation, the complainant will have to return an amount of Rs 6,65,000 without interest. Maharera ordered the builder to return the entire money on or before on 15 July, 2025. No, till the money is not received, from July 16, 2025, 2 percent more interest will be payable from SBI’s high MCLR. Not only this, RERA has also ordered Lodha developers to pay Rs 20,000 to buyers as compensation for the expenditure incurred in the legal process.
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