MOFA Amendment 2025: Deemed Conveyance Now Available for RERA Projects

The Gap That Trapped Post-2016 Societies

Before this amendment, a housing society in a RERA-registered project had no way to force title transfer if the promoter simply refused. Section 17 of RERA requires the promoter to execute a conveyance deed in favour of the allottees or their association within the period specified in the sale agreement, or within three months of the majority of allottees obtaining occupancy. The problem was enforcement. RERA gave the obligation but no unilateral remedy. If the developer stalled, the society had to file a complaint before MahaRERA and hope for compliance, with no mechanism to obtain title without the promoter's signature.

Compare this to older societies formed under the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act. Those buyers had deemed conveyance under Section 11 of MOFA, allowing the Competent Authority to transfer title unilaterally when a promoter defaulted. Projects registered after 1 May 2016 fell into a strange hole. They were covered by RERA but excluded from the MOFA deemed conveyance route, leaving thousands of societies without land title for nearly a decade.

What Section 11A Actually Does

The Maharashtra Ownership Flats (Amendment and Validation) Act 2025, enacted on 31 December 2025, inserts Section 11A into MOFA. The provision gives allottees or an association of allottees in a RERA-registered project the right to apply to the MOFA Competent Authority for a deemed conveyance when the promoter defaults on the obligation under Section 17 of RERA.

The procedure is not new. Section 11A borrows the established machinery under Section 11(4) and 11(5) of MOFA. The society applies to the District Deputy Registrar acting as Competent Authority, submits proof of the promoter's default, and the authority can issue a unilateral deemed conveyance order and direct the Sub-Registrar to register it without the promoter's participation.

The effect is that post-2016 societies now have the same self-help remedy that older MOFA societies always had. This closes a gap that left housing societies dependent on promoter cooperation for the single most important asset transfer in a project's life.

Retrospective Effect and the Validation Clause

The amendment operates retrospectively from 1 May 2016, the date RERA came into force in Maharashtra. This is deliberate. It captures every RERA-registered project from day one, so societies that took possession years ago are not shut out because their project predates the 2025 amendment.

Section 5 of the amending Act contains a validation clause. Some Competent Authorities had already been passing deemed conveyance orders for RERA-registered projects even before the amendment existed, treating the MOFA machinery as applicable. Those orders were legally vulnerable because there was no clear statutory backing. The validation clause protects them. It declares that any deemed conveyance order passed before the amendment, in respect of a RERA project, is deemed valid and cannot be challenged on the ground that MOFA did not apply.

For a property advisor, this matters when a client's society already holds a deemed conveyance order obtained on shaky legal footing. That order is now protected.

The Bombay High Court Ruling of February 2026

The amendment was litigated almost immediately. In February 2026, the Bombay High Court upheld a pre-amendment deemed conveyance order relating to a Pune project. A promoter had challenged an order passed by the Competent Authority before Section 11A existed, arguing the authority had no jurisdiction over a RERA-registered project.

The court relied on the validation clause under Section 5 to uphold the order. The reasoning was straightforward. The legislature had retrospectively cured the jurisdictional defect and expressly protected such orders from challenge. The promoter's objection fell away.

This ruling gives real estate consultants and society committees confidence that pre-amendment orders will hold. It also signals how the High Court is likely to treat future applications under Section 11A. Competent Authorities across Maharashtra now have judicial cover to process deemed conveyance for post-2016 societies without waiting for further clarification.

The Open Constitutional Question Under Section 88

One issue is not settled. RERA is a central Act, and Section 88 states that RERA's provisions are in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other law in force. A state amendment to MOFA that creates a parallel remedy raises the question of whether it supplements RERA or conflicts with it.

If a court later holds that Section 11A is repugnant to RERA rather than supplementary, Article 254 of the Constitution comes into play. A state law repugnant to a central law on a Concurrent List subject can be struck down unless it received Presidential assent. The counter-argument is that Section 11A fills a procedural gap RERA left open and does not contradict any RERA provision, so it survives as supplementary legislation.

Expect this to be argued in higher courts. Until then, treat the deemed conveyance route as available but flag the pending uncertainty to clients relying on it for a large transaction.

Practical Checklist for Advising Buyer-Clients

Alert a buyer-client to the conveyance issue before booking, not after possession. When recommending a project to end-users who plan to form a co-operative housing society, check whether the sale agreement specifies a conveyance timeline as Section 13 and Section 17 require. If it is silent or vague, treat that as a warning sign about how the promoter will behave on title transfer.

Advise the society on the documents needed to approach the MOFA Competent Authority: the registered sale agreements of members, the society registration certificate, the occupancy certificate, the property card and 7/12 extract, approved plans, and evidence of the promoter's default under Section 17. A registered intermediary who can point the committee to this list adds real value after possession.

A registered intermediary should also understand that recommending a project is not only about price and possession date. Clean title after possession is what protects the buyer's investment, and you can use our topic-wise RERA practice test to drill Section 11, 13 and 17 obligations until they are automatic in client conversations.

Why This Sits in Your Exam Preparation

The MahaRERA agent examination tests Section 17 conveyance obligations and the interaction between RERA and state laws like MOFA. Section 11A is exactly the kind of current development that examiners fold into scenario questions, because it links promoter duties, allottee remedies, and the role of the Competent Authority in a single fact pattern.

Know the specifics cold: the 31 December 2025 enactment date, the retrospective effect from 1 May 2016, the borrowed Section 11(4) and 11(5) machinery, and the Section 88 supplementary-versus-repugnant debate. These details separate a confident answer from a guess.

Revise conveyance alongside the broader promoter obligations under Sections 11 to 18 rather than in isolation. Work through the MahaRERA exam syllabus to see where conveyance sits, then test yourself under timed conditions with a full-length RERA mock test before your exam date.