By S&S Co. Advocates & Solicitors · Published 28 October 2026 · Informational content, not legal advice: see our disclaimer
Most homebuyers assume that once they have signed the agreement for sale with their builder, whatever it says is the deal, full stop. For the large majority of terms, that is true. What is less understood is that the builder was never free to draft that agreement from a blank page. At the time a project is registered, the promoter uploads a draft agreement for sale to the state RERA portal, and the agreements it later signs with individual flat buyers are supposed to follow that filed format. When they do not, the deviation is not just a contract issue between buyer and builder. It is a regulatory violation the state RERA authority can act on directly.
A Telangana ruling from 2026 shows how far this can go, and why it matters to any buyer who suspects the agreement in their hand is not quite what was promised at registration.
What Rule 38 Actually Requires
Most states' RERA rules contain a provision, commonly numbered Rule 38, prescribing a standard format for the agreement for sale that a promoter must use with allottees, built around the annexure to that rule. The idea behind it is straightforward: the agreement a buyer eventually signs should not drift away from what the promoter represented to the regulator and to the public when the project was registered. A developer cannot, after registration, negotiate materially different terms with individual buyers on a one-off basis and still call the arrangement RERA-compliant.
This does not mean every agreement must be word-for-word identical in every clause; project-specific details obviously vary. What it is aimed at is the structural and substantive terms, such as payment schedules, delay compensation formulas, and the allocation of statutory obligations between promoter and allottee, staying consistent with the format filed at registration. A promoter who wants to change those terms is expected to amend the registered format, not quietly substitute a different document at the signing stage.
The Telangana Ruling: An Rs 11 Lakh Penalty for a Different Agreement
In Mehta & Modi Realty Kowkur LLP v. Deepa Suraj Premi, buyers argued that the agreement they signed in November 2019 differed materially from the draft the promoter had uploaded to the Telangana RERA portal at registration. The state authority agreed, and in June 2025 imposed a penalty of roughly Rs 10.99 lakh under Section 60 of the RERA Act, finding that the promoter had furnished false information and executed an agreement different from the one it had placed before the authority. The promoter appealed, arguing in part that a specific maintenance-charge clause in the executed agreement was valid on its own terms.
The Telangana Real Estate Appellate Tribunal, in its order dated 6 May 2026 in T.A. No. 45 of 2025, upheld the penalty. It held that changing the prescribed format and executing a substantially different agreement was impermissible even where some individual terms happened to match, and that this conduct amounted both to a breach of Rule 38 and to furnishing false information and suppressing material facts under Section 60. The Tribunal also held that the promoter could not rely on the maintenance clause in the non-compliant agreement to justify its charges, since the agreement itself was not the valid, RERA-consistent document it was supposed to be.
A related Telangana order against a different Hyderabad builder went further, imposing a penalty of roughly Rs 13.74 lakh under Sections 13, 60 and 61 together, for both using an agreement that departed from the registered draft and for failing to get that agreement registered as required. Read together, these orders show the authority treating a mismatched agreement as something it will penalise on its own, independent of whatever possession or delay dispute the buyer might separately have.
Why 'The Buyer Signed It' Is Not a Defence
A natural reaction from a promoter facing this complaint is that the buyer read and voluntarily signed the agreement, so there is nothing to answer for. RERA's scheme does not accept that argument, and for good reason. The whole point of filing a standard agreement at registration is to fix a baseline that individual negotiations cannot be allowed to erode, precisely because individual buyers rarely have the bargaining power to resist a developer's preferred terms at the point of booking. If a signature cured the defect, Rule 38 would have no teeth at all.
This also means a buyer does not need to show they were misled or pressured into signing a non-standard agreement to succeed on this ground. The question the authority asks is whether the executed document departs materially from the filed draft, not whether the buyer understood what they were signing. That makes it a comparatively clean complaint to bring, provided the buyer can actually get a copy of the registered draft to compare against.
What Counts as a Material Deviation
Reported orders give some sense of what tips a deviation from cosmetic into material. Altered payment schedules, different delay-compensation terms than the filed format specifies, and clauses that shift a statutory obligation, such as who bears GST on delay interest, onto the buyer have all drawn adverse findings. A change in font, paragraph numbering, or purely administrative detail, by contrast, would not be expected to attract the same treatment.
The practical test a buyer or their advocate should apply is whether the change affects money, timing, or a right the RERA Act or rules otherwise guarantee the allottee. If it does, there is a real Rule 38 argument. If the difference is purely cosmetic, it is unlikely to be worth pursuing as a separate complaint, and the buyer's energy is better spent on whatever substantive relief, such as delay compensation, they actually need.
What a Buyer Should Do on Discovering a Mismatch
The first step is practical rather than legal: get the draft agreement the promoter uploaded at registration, which is typically available through the project's entry on the state RERA website, and compare it clause by clause against the signed agreement. Flag specifically the clauses dealing with payment milestones, delay interest, and any obligation that the RERA Act itself places on the promoter rather than the buyer.
The complaint route is a direct one to the state RERA authority, not a civil suit, and it runs separately from whatever possession, refund, or delay-interest claim the buyer is pursuing. There is no reason to wait for the possession dispute to conclude before raising the Rule 38 point, since the authority can act on the agreement mismatch on its own footing. Buyers should also be alert to collateral relief that authorities have ordered in such cases beyond the headline fine, including directions barring a promoter from passing certain costs onto buyers and orders affecting developer-controlled resident associations formed in connection with the project.
One caution is worth building into any advice on this point: the exact rule number, its annexure, and the specific items it prescribes vary by state, since the standard-agreement requirement sits in state-specific RERA rules rather than in the central Act itself. A buyer outside Telangana should check their own state's rules before assuming the numbering or format described here carries over unchanged.
Frequently Asked Questions
I already signed my agreement. Can I still complain that it doesn't match what was filed with RERA?
Yes. Having signed the agreement does not cure a Rule 38 violation, and tribunals have expressly rejected the argument that a buyer's signature validates a materially different document. The complaint is about the promoter's conduct in departing from the registered format, not about whether the buyer consented.
Where do I get a copy of the agreement the builder actually filed with RERA at registration?
The draft agreement uploaded at the time of project registration is generally part of the project's public record on the state RERA authority's website. If it is not readily accessible there, you can request it from the authority directly or seek it through your RERA complaint.
Is this penalty instead of, or in addition to, my delay-compensation or refund claim?
In addition to. The Section 60 penalty for a false or non-compliant agreement is a separate regulatory consequence against the promoter. It does not replace, and is not replaced by, whatever relief you are separately entitled to for delayed possession, refund, or other contractual breaches.
Does a minor difference in wording between my agreement and the filed draft count as a violation?
Reported orders focus on material deviations, meaning changes that affect payment terms, delay compensation, or a statutory obligation, rather than cosmetic or administrative differences. A trivial wording change is unlikely to attract a penalty on its own.
Does this Rule 38 point apply the same way outside Telangana?
The underlying idea, that the executed agreement must track the registered draft, is common across states, but the specific rule number, its annexure, and what counts as a prescribed format differ by state's own RERA rules. Check your own state's rules rather than assuming the Telangana numbering applies directly.
References & Further Reading
The provisions and rulings below were relied on for this guide. The position can change with amendments and later decisions, so check the current text and the latest case law before acting on any of it.
- Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, Section 60 (penalty for false information or non-compliance with section 4 registration requirements)
- Telangana Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Rules, 2017, Rule 38 (agreement for sale format)
- Mehta & Modi Realty Kowkur LLP v. Deepa Suraj Premi, Telangana Real Estate Appellate Tribunal, T.A. No. 45 of 2025, order dated 6 May 2026
- Telangana RERA order imposing penalty under Sections 13, 60 and 61 on a Hyderabad builder for an agreement departing from the registered draft and for non-registration of the agreement