Builder Delayed Possession In Mohali? What RERA Punjab Actually Awards, And How Long It Really Takes बिल्डर ने मोहाली में पज़ेशन में देरी की? RERA पंजाब वास्तव में क्या अवार्ड करता है, और इसमें वास्तव में कितना समय लगता है Builder Delayed Possession In Mohali? What RERA Punjab Actually Awards, And How Long It Really Takes

The agreement said a date. The date passed. Then another year passed, and then the builder called to say possession is ready, and there is a revised cost sheet attached asking for several lakh more.

That sequence is common enough in this region that the law has a specific answer to it, and most buyers do not know what the answer is worth. Here is what Section 18 gives you, what Punjab RERA has actually ordered in New Chandigarh, and how long it took the people who filed.

Section 18 opens two doors, and you choose

Under Section 18 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, where a promoter fails to give possession by the date specified in the agreement for sale, the allottee has two options.

Withdraw from the project, and receive back the amount paid with interest at the prescribed rate, plus compensation. Or stay in the project, and be paid interest for every month of delay until possession is actually handed over.

This is not a claim you have to argue in the way a civil suit is argued. The Supreme Court in Newtech Promoters and Developers versus State of Uttar Pradesh described the right as unqualified, and held it is not diluted by contractual terms or by circumstances outside the builder's control. You do not have to prove loss. The trigger is the passing of the agreed date.

There is a jurisdictional split worth knowing. Refund and interest are decided by the Authority. Compensation is decided by the Adjudicating Officer, on a separate application. In the June 2026 order discussed below, the Authority awarded the interest and sent the claim for litigation costs to the Adjudicating Officer, which is exactly how the division works in practice.

The rate, and what it produced

Punjab prescribes interest at the State Bank of India's highest marginal cost of lending rate plus two percent. In June 2026, Punjab RERA applied that as 10.80 percent per annum.

The case is worth setting out in full, because the numbers show how the remedy actually works.

Sunita Verma and Brij Bala Verma booked a 1,920 sq ft flat in the Caspean-E tower of Omaxe's The Lake project in New Chandigarh in 2014, against a sale consideration of ₹72,18,480. They paid ₹58,60,470 by July 2019, over 80 percent of the cost. Possession never came.

In an order reported on 16 June 2026, RERA Chairman Rakesh Kumar Goyal held that M/s Omaxe New Chandigarh Developers Pvt. Ltd. had failed to deliver possession within the agreed period, and awarded ₹34,81,119 in delay interest covering 66 months from December 2020 to May 2026.

Note what the interest ran on. Ten point eight percent of the ₹58,60,470 actually paid works out to almost exactly the monthly figure the Authority used. Interest is calculated on money you have handed over, not on the headline price of the flat, which is why payment receipts matter more than the agreement in the arithmetic.

From June 2026 the builder was made liable for a further ₹52,747 every month until valid possession is handed over, with payment due within 90 days and possession to be offered within 15 days of obtaining the occupation or completion certificate. The interest does not end when the order is passed. It runs until the keys change hands.

The Authority also restrained the company from reselling or transferring the unit until possession is delivered to the complainants, which is a protection worth asking for in any complaint where the flat could be sold on.

The finding that changes how you count the delay

The most useful part of that order is not the money. It is the fight over which date the clock started from.

Omaxe argued that its 42-month construction timeline, plus a six-month grace period, ran from the Allotment Letter-cum-Agreement to Sale signed in November 2016. On that reading the delay would have been far shorter and far cheaper.

The Authority rejected it. It fixed the due date for offer of possession at October to November 2020, taking into account the buyers' payment history going back to 2014 and a Covid-linked extension, since the project's extended deadline itself fell inside the pandemic period.

That matters to anyone in this position. Builders commonly sell years before executing a formal agreement, then date their obligation from the later document. This order says the Authority will look at when you actually started paying, not only at what the agreement says. If you booked in one year and signed in another, the earlier date is arguable, and the difference between the two is measured in lakhs of interest.

It also shows the Covid extension is a real factor rather than a builder's excuse, applied here as part of the same calculation rather than as a defence that wiped out liability.

Where the buyers lost

An honest account has to include this, because the same order rejected two of the complainants' claims.

Their allegations of overcharging on super area against carpet area were dismissed for want of evidence, as was a claim for penalty under Section 61.

So the area argument is not a formality. Something like it appears in matter after matter in this corridor. In one refund case, an offer of possession came four years past the contractual date with a revised cost sheet showing super area up from 1,285 sq ft to 1,405 sq ft and a demand higher by roughly ₹7 lakh. In another, a possession offer arrived with a demand for ₹9.51 lakh that the buyer disputed.

The pattern is recognisable. Winning on it is a separate question, and the Verma order is the caution. If you are handed a revised demand at the door, the material that decides it is your agreement's area clause, the sanctioned plan, the approved layout and a measurement, assembled before the argument rather than after. A dispute asserted without those is what "want of evidence" looks like in an order.

The limits of who you can pursue

The complaint had named a director of the respondent company personally. The Authority dropped him from the array of respondents, holding that the obligation under Section 18 lies against the promoter company and not against an individual director.

Worth knowing before drafting. The company is the respondent.

The defence that did not work

Omaxe also argued that an arbitration clause in the agreement ousted the Authority's jurisdiction. RERA rejected that, citing the Supreme Court's ruling in Emaar MGF Land versus Aftab Singh.

An arbitration clause in a builder buyer agreement is common, and is often presented to buyers as closing off the regulator. It does not.

The same reasoning in other orders

Naresh Garg and Anju Garg, a Gurugram couple who had booked in the same project under an agreement of December 2020 with possession due by July 2023, obtained a delay interest order in May 2026 having paid over 90 percent of the consideration.

And where a buyer chose the other door, the Authority allowed it. In RERA/GC No. 0294 of 2023, an allottee who booked in August 2014 with possession contractually due by June 2019, and who had paid ₹52,24,651 by April 2023 against a ₹45 lakh home loan, was granted a refund rather than being made to wait.

These are orders of the Authority and are appealable, so none is necessarily the final word in that particular case.

How to file

Complaints go to Punjab RERA at rera.punjab.gov.in. A complaint to the Authority is made in Form M under the Punjab rules; an application to the Adjudicating Officer for compensation under Sections 12, 14, 18 or 19 is Form N. The Verma complaint was filed under Section 31, with the entitlement arising under Section 18(1).

The complaint carries a declaration that the same matter is not pending before, and has not been decided by, any other court or authority. That matters if you were also considering the consumer forum, because you choose one route.

Filing is cheap, commonly cited at ₹1,000 for a complaint and the same for an appeal under Section 44, and for straightforward delay and refund complaints buyers do file without a lawyer. The current schedule is on the portal.

The project's own record sits on the same portal: registration status, the possession date on record, uploaded approvals and any existing complaints. The date registered with the Authority is public, and it is the one the Authority works from rather than the brochure.

How long it really takes

This is the part nobody tells you, and it is the most useful thing in this article.

The Act sets a 60 day target for disposal by the Adjudicating Officer. The reality in these Punjab matters was considerably longer. The refund case was filed in August 2023 and decided around November 2025, a little over two years. Another matter carrying a 2024 case number was decided in June 2026.

So the honest planning assumption for a contested delay complaint in Punjab is closer to two years than to two months, and that is before any appeal. Either party may appeal to the Real Estate Appellate Tribunal within 60 days under Section 44, with a further appeal to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on a question of law.

The interest running in the meantime is the counterweight, and it is the reason delay does not favour the builder the way it once did. In the Verma matter it accrued at over ₹52,000 a month while the case sat, and it kept accruing after the order.

If the builder does not pay

A RERA order is enforceable, and the June 2026 order shows the machinery. Where payment is not made within the ordered period, the amount is recoverable as arrears of land revenue under Section 40(1) of the Act read with the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887, with the Authority's Secretary directed to issue a Debt Recovery Certificate. The complainants were named as decree holders and the company as judgment debtor for recovery purposes.

An execution application lies before the same Authority. The Act also provides penalties for non-compliance with orders of the Authority and, more severely, of the Tribunal.

What this does not cover

RERA applies to registered real estate projects and to promoters. A GMADA plot allotment or an Aerotropolis Letter of Intent is a different relationship, with the authority rather than with a private promoter, and the remedies sit elsewhere. Our buyer's guide sets out how those instruments work.

For anyone holding a delayed flat in a private project in New Chandigarh or the Mohali sectors, the position is better than most buyers assume. The right does not have to be argued from scratch, the arbitration clause does not close it off, the due date is not simply whatever the builder's paperwork says, and the interest keeps accruing against the builder for as long as the delay continues. What it costs is roughly two years of waiting, a ₹1,000 filing fee, and a complete set of payment receipts.

None of the above is legal advice, and orders in individual cases turn on their own facts and agreements.

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Sources

- RERA slaps Omaxe with Rs 34.81 lakh penalty for delay in handing New Chandigarh flat possession, Nitin Jain, The Tribune, 16 June 2026, on the award, the 10.80 percent rate, the due date finding, the rejected super area and Section 61 claims, the dropped director, the resale restraint and the recovery mechanism
- Punjab RERA directs Omaxe to pay delay interest to Gurugram couple for New Chandigarh flat, The Tribune, May 2026
- Punjab RERA Directs Omaxe New Chandigarh Developers To Refund Homebuyer's Money For Delayed Possession, LiveLaw, on RERA/GC No. 0294 of 2023, the refund and the revised cost sheet with the area escalation
- Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, India Code, for the text of Sections 18, 31, 40, 44, 61, 63 and 71