A buyer looking at a boutique development off Bannerghatta Road could not find it on the regulator's website. The developer's explanation was that the project was too small to require registration. In that particular case the explanation was true, and the buyer walked away better informed rather than alarmed. In many other cases the same sentence is used to cover a project that should have been registered and was not. Knowing exactly which developments the Act exempts is what lets you tell the two apart.

The short answer. Under Section 3(2) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, registration is not required where the land proposed to be developed does not exceed 500 square metres or the number of apartments proposed does not exceed eight, inclusive of all phases, where the promoter received a completion certificate before the Act commenced, or for renovation, repair or redevelopment that does not involve marketing, advertising, selling or new allotment. Ongoing projects without a completion certificate were required to register. The trade off: a genuinely exempt project is lawful, but it also sits outside the regulator's protections.

Which projects does the Act exempt from registration?

Three defined categories, and nothing beyond them. As the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs sets out in its official FAQs on the Real Estate Act, Section 3(2) provides that the following projects do not require registration: where the area of land proposed to be developed does not exceed 500 square metres or the number of apartments proposed to be developed does not exceed eight, inclusive of all phases.

The second category covers projects already finished when the law arrived. Registration is not required where the promoter has received a completion certificate for a real estate project prior to the commencement of the Act. The third covers works that are not really a sale at all: renovation, repair or redevelopment which does not involve marketing, advertising, selling or new allotment.

Why does the phrase inclusive of all phases matter?

Because it closes the most obvious way around the threshold. Without those words, a developer could split a large scheme into a series of small phases, each individually below the limit, and claim exemption for all of them. The Ministry's statement of the exemption expressly counts the apartments proposed to be developed inclusive of all phases.

For a Bengaluru buyer, the practical test is to look at the whole scheme rather than the piece being sold to you today. If a development is plainly larger than the threshold when taken as a whole, an exemption claim based on the current phase alone deserves scrutiny. Ask how many apartments the complete scheme proposes and how much land it covers, and ask for the answer in writing.

Note also how the threshold itself is worded. The exemption applies where the land does not exceed 500 square metres or the apartments do not exceed eight, which means a project can be small in one dimension and still fall outside the exemption on the other. A development on a modest plot that nonetheless proposes a larger number of compact units is a common Bengaluru pattern, and it is exactly the situation where a casual assumption about size can mislead a buyer. Work through both figures rather than relying on an impression of the site.

What happened to projects already under construction in 2016?

They were brought within the Act rather than left outside it. The Ministry FAQs confirm that ongoing and incomplete projects are covered, and that the first proviso to Section 31 provides that promoters of all ongoing projects which have not received a completion certificate needed to register their project with the regulatory authority within three months of the provision's commencement.

The counterpart to that rule is Section 32(b), under which registration is not required where the promoter received a completion certificate for a real estate project prior to the commencement of the Act. So the dividing line for older developments is the completion certificate, and its date relative to the Act, rather than the age of the building or the year construction began.

Each row implies a document you can ask for. An exemption claim is a factual assertion about land area, unit count, or a certificate, and a developer relying on one should be able to substantiate it without difficulty. Reluctance to put any of these figures in writing is itself informative, because none of them are commercially sensitive and all of them would have been established long before the project reached the market.

What do you lose if a project is genuinely exempt?

The regulator's machinery, which is a considerable amount. A registered project carries public disclosures, declared timelines, quarterly updates, and a defined complaint route to the authority. An exempt project carries none of that by operation of the Act, which does not make it a bad purchase but does change how much diligence falls to you personally.

It is worth being concrete about what disappears. On a registered project you can look up the promoter's declared completion date and watch it over time, read the approvals filed at registration, and take a grievance about the promoter's conduct to the authority. None of those exist as a matter of right where the project falls outside registration. You are then relying on the developer's own candour and on whatever your contract obliges them to do, which is a materially weaker position even when the developer is entirely honest.

The practical consequence is that your own checks have to do more work. Title, approvals, the developer's record, and the terms of your agreement matter in every purchase, but they carry the whole load where there is no regulator standing behind the project. Small developments are not inherently risky, and many are built by careful local builders, but the safety net is different and you should price that into your decision rather than assume it away.

How should you test an exemption claim?

Treat it as a claim to be evidenced, not a conversation ender. Ask for the total land area of the scheme, the total number of apartments proposed across all phases, and, where the claim rests on a completion certificate predating the Act, a copy of that certificate. These are ordinary questions with documented answers for a legitimate project.

Ask the question early, too, rather than after you have emotionally committed to a particular flat. Then check the regulator's website anyway. A developer who tells you a project is exempt while the same project appears on the portal has told you something inconsistent, and a project that ought to exceed the threshold but appears nowhere is worth pausing over. Our guide on how to verify a project registration in Bengaluru covers that search, and it takes only a few minutes.

Does an exempt project change how marketing should be read?

Yes, because some of the advertising rules are tied to registration. A registered project must carry its registration number and the authority's website address in advertisements, which gives you an immediate cross check on marketing claims. Where no registration exists, that particular check is unavailable to you, and the claims in a brochure become harder to test against an official record.

That makes preserving marketing material even more important on an exempt project, since your agreement and your correspondence become the primary record of what was promised. Our guide to what happens when a builder advertisement turns out to be false explains how to capture that evidence properly while you are still deciding.

A registration status checklist for buyers

Run these seven checks before accepting that a project needs no registration.

1. Ask for the total land area of the scheme, in square metres, in writing.
2. Ask for the total number of apartments proposed across all phases.
3. Compare both figures against the 500 square metre and eight apartment thresholds.
4. Where the claim rests on a completion certificate, ask for a dated copy.
5. Search the regulator's website for the project and the promoter name anyway.
6. For redevelopment claims, ask whether any marketing, selling or new allotment is involved.
7. Increase your own legal and title diligence where no registration exists.

If you are weighing an exempt development against a registered one, comparing documented projects helps calibrate expectations. Our coverage of developments such as Casagrand Moondance in Kumbalgodu shows the level of published detail a larger registered project typically carries.

Frequently asked questions

Which projects do not need RERA registration? Under Section 3(2), registration is not required where the land proposed to be developed does not exceed 500 square metres or the apartments proposed do not exceed eight, inclusive of all phases; where a completion certificate was received before the Act commenced; or for renovation, repair or redevelopment not involving marketing, advertising, selling or new allotment.

Can a builder split a project into phases to avoid registering? The exemption counts the apartments proposed to be developed inclusive of all phases, so the threshold is applied to the scheme rather than to a single phase. If a development is clearly larger than the threshold overall, an exemption claim resting on one phase deserves careful scrutiny.

Were older under construction projects covered? Yes. The Ministry FAQs confirm ongoing and incomplete projects are covered, and that the first proviso to Section 31 required promoters of all ongoing projects that had not received a completion certificate to register within three months of the provision's commencement.

Is an exempt project unsafe to buy? Not inherently, but it sits outside the regulator's disclosures, timelines and complaint route. That means your own title checks, approval checks and agreement review carry more weight, and you should ask the developer to evidence the basis of the exemption before you proceed.

Last updated 2026-07-25. PropNewz Team.