Lapsed Registration and the 'Same Business' LLP
Farhan Qureshi is registered with MahaRERA as an individual real estate agent. His certificate ran for five years from 1 April 2020 and expired on 31 March 2025. He filed his renewal application on 20 May 2025 with the prescribed fee. Between 1 April and 20 May 2025 he closed three deals - two flats at ₹85 lakh each and one at ₹1.2 crore - and earned ₹4.8 lakh in commission. Separately, in February 2025 he formed Qureshi Realty LLP with his brother, printed brochures in the LLP's name, and kept printing his personal MahaRERA number on them. A rival broker has complained to MahaRERA about both the lapse and the LLP's advertising. Qureshi says renewal is routine and that the LLP is 'the same business'.
1. Was Qureshi legally entitled to broker deals between 1 April and 20 May 2025? What is his exposure, and does filing the renewal application cure it?
Read the worked answer
No, and filing does not cure it.
Registration under Section 9(4) runs for five years. Renewal must be applied for at least 60 days before expiry (Section 9(5)). Filing on 20 May does not backdate cover - the Authority's power to accept a late application on payment of a prescribed penalty (Section 9(6)) operates prospectively, from the date renewal is granted. The 30-day deeming rule in Section 9(3) is directed at pending applications and cannot manufacture cover for a period that had already run out before any application existed.
Each of the three deals is a facilitation by an unregistered agent. The agent-side penalty provision (Section 62) is ₹10,000 per day of continuing default, capped at 5% of the cost of the plot or apartment involved, whichever is less, adjudicated under Section 71 after a hearing. Illustratively over 50 days:
- ₹85 lakh flat: 50 × ₹10,000 = ₹5 lakh, but the 5% cap is ₹4.25 lakh, so ₹4.25 lakh applies.
- ₹1.2 crore flat: 50 × ₹10,000 = ₹5 lakh, below the ₹6 lakh cap, so ₹5 lakh applies.
The ₹4.8 lakh commission is separately exposed to a restitution or unfair-practice direction. That the fee was eventually paid is mitigation, not a defence.
2. Can the LLP rely on Qureshi's individual registration number? What must be corrected?
Read the worked answer
No. Registration attaches to the person that applied.
An LLP is a separate person from its designated partner; an individual certificate cannot be lent to it. The LLP needs its own registration in the non-individual category (prescribed fee ₹1,00,000 against ₹10,000 for an individual). The rule that is often confused runs the other way: partners, directors or designated partners of a registered entity need not be individually registered - but an individual's registration never covers the entity.
Printing his personal number on LLP brochures is a false representation to buyers who will check the portal and find a different entity. That falls squarely within the agent's duties under Section 10 and is an unfair trade practice. It also breaches the conditions of his own registration and gives MahaRERA a basis to proceed after notice and hearing.
Corrections: withdraw the LLP brochures at once, apply for the LLP's own registration, intimate the change in particulars on the individual file, and keep the two identities and two sets of books strictly separate.