There is a document that gets waved across a table in nearly every Maharashtra plot deal, and it does far less than buyers believe. It is the NA order — the collector's permission to convert agricultural land to non-agricultural use. Sellers produce it as though it settles the matter.
MahaRERA's position is that it does not. Permission to convert is the beginning of the process, not the end of it, and the gap between the order being issued and its conditions being fulfilled is exactly where plot buyers lose money. This guide explains what that gap is, when a plotted layout must be registered, and what to ask for instead.
Quick takeaway: An NA order permits conversion. Conversion is complete only when the Tehsildar records that the conditions in that order have been fulfilled — the roads, drainage and services it required. Until then, MahaRERA has treated the project as ongoing, which means it must be registered, and must not be advertised or sold. Ask for both documents. Most sellers have only the first.
The Distinction That Decides Everything
Land in Maharashtra outside developed limits is agricultural by default. To use it for anything else, you need conversion to non-agricultural (NA) use under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code. The collector issues an order granting that, and the order carries conditions — infrastructure the land must actually receive before it is fit for the use being permitted.
Those conditions are not decoration. MahaRERA's reasoning, articulated when the authority was chaired by Ajoy Mehta, is that NA land is fit for human habitation only once the infrastructure and amenities set out in the NA order have been provided — and only then is the project entitled to a completion certificate.
So there are two moments, and they can be years apart:
| What it is | What it proves | |
|---|---|---|
| NA order issued | Collector permits conversion, subject to conditions | That conversion is allowed |
| Tehsildar certification | Record that the conditions have been fulfilled | That conversion is done |
A seller holding the first and not the second is holding a permission for work that has not happened. On the ground, that usually means the internal roads shown on the brochure are lines on paper and the drainage does not exist.
Why This Pulls the Project Into RERA
The consequence is not merely that the land is unfinished. It is that the project is legally ongoing, and an ongoing project above the statutory thresholds must be registered under Section 3 before it is advertised, marketed or sold.
In the matter that established this position — concerning a project at Kolad in Raigad — the promoter argued the development had been complete since 2014, that all NA conditions were met and the plots sold, and that the complaint was harassment. MahaRERA held otherwise: in a plotted development all amenities must be completed as agreed, and directed the promoter not to advertise, sell or permit bookings until the project was registered.
That reasoning matters well beyond one project. It means a layout can be a decade old, fully sold, and still be an unregistered ongoing project in the eyes of the regulator — because the test is not elapsed time, it is whether what was promised was delivered.
The Genuine Exemption, and How It Gets Abused
MahaRERA Circular No. 25 of 2019, dated 11 October 2019, clarified that where a developer sells only open plots with no promised structures or amenities, the project does not fall under RERA. That is a real exemption and it exists for good reason — a bare land sale between two parties is a conveyance, not a development project.
The abuse is predictable. A seller relies on the exemption while the marketing does the opposite:
- A brochure showing an internal road grid — that is a promise of roads.
- Renderings with street lighting, a gate, a compound wall — promises of amenities.
- A price that visibly includes development charges.
- A sales pitch describing phases, which only exist in a developed project.
The test is substance, not the wording of the agreement. If infrastructure such as roads, water or drainage is being promised, registration may well be required regardless of what the sale deed calls the transaction. A developer who is genuinely inside the exemption is selling you land and nothing else — and should have no difficulty saying so plainly.
What It Costs to Get Wrong
For the developer, developing or advertising without required registration can attract a penalty of up to ten per cent of the estimated project cost, with imprisonment possible for continued breach.
For the buyer the loss is quieter and arrives later. An unregistered project has no RERA forum — so the escrow discipline, the declared completion date and the complaint mechanism that would have protected you do not exist. When the roads are not built, there is no regulator to go to, because the project the regulator would act against was never registered with it.
What to Ask For
| Ask for | Because |
|---|---|
| The NA order | Establishes that conversion was permitted, and on what conditions |
| Evidence the NA conditions are certified fulfilled | The document almost nobody volunteers — and the one that means it is done |
| Current 7/12 and mutation (ferfar) entries | Ownership, and the other-rights column for acquisition, reservation, loan or litigation |
| Sanctioned layout plan | That this plot pattern is approved, by an authority you can name |
| MahaRERA registration | Wherever development is promised — check it, do not accept a number on paper |
Then do the step that catches the mismatch documents cannot: match the plot on the ground to the sanctioned layout. Number, dimensions, road frontage. Plots get re-cut, corners get shaved, and a layout that was approved in one shape is sometimes sold in another. An interactive 3D view of the approved plan makes that comparison quick, and it is the check most buyers skip because walking a dusty site with a folded PDF is genuinely hard.
For Developers
The uncomfortable reading of the Kolad matter is that a project you consider closed may not be. If plots were sold on a promise of roads and services that were never completed, elapsed years do not convert that into a finished project — and a single complaint can reopen it.
The defensible position is the straightforward one: complete the NA conditions, get them certified, register where registration is required, and publish the sanctioned layout in a form buyers can actually check. Transparency about what is built and what is promised is cheaper than a proceeding about the difference.