The Channel Partner's Current Account
Sunil is a MahaRERA-registered agent and the authorised channel partner for 'Sunrise Heights', a registered 120-unit project in Pune. Each unit costs ₹80 lakh. His agreement pays him ₹40,000 per booking plus 1% of sale value. On 5 April 2025 he books three buyers and collects ₹9 lakh from each as 'booking amount' into his firm's current account, issuing receipts on his own letterhead. He tells the buyers the agreement for sale will be executed 'at possession, to save stamp duty', and that the money is 'as safe as the promoter's escrow'. The promoter has received nothing. No agreement has been registered. In August 2025 the project is eight months past its committed possession date, and two of the three buyers want out.
1. Identify every statutory breach on these facts and say who is liable.
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At least five breaches, and the promoter cannot pass them all to Sunil.
- 10% cap, Section 13(1): the promoter may not accept more than 10% of the cost of an apartment as advance without a written agreement for sale registered under the Registration Act. 10% of ₹80 lakh is ₹8 lakh; ₹9 lakh per buyer breaches it. Money collected by an authorised channel partner is money accepted by the promoter.
- Escrow, Section 11(4)(b): 70% of amounts realised must be deposited in the project's separate account and withdrawn only against certified completion. ₹27 lakh parked in Sunil's current account never entered escrow - that is diversion, one of the most serious project-level contraventions.
- Section 10 duties for Sunil: facilitating a sale in contravention of the Act, and making false representations.
- The 'save stamp duty' advice: deferring a registered agreement to reduce stamp duty is a false and self-serving representation, and amounts to abetment of stamp-duty evasion; the agreement remains chargeable on the true consideration when executed.
- The 'as safe as the promoter's escrow' line: a plain misstatement - the money was outside escrow, unsecured, and held by an entity that is not a party to the sale.
Worst feature for Sunil: his own receipts are the evidence. He cannot claim to have been a mere broker when he issued letterheads, held funds and dictated when the agreement would be signed.
2. What can the buyers claim, and what does Sunil owe them?
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Each buyer may elect under Section 18: withdraw and claim refund of the full ₹9 lakh with interest at the prescribed rate (SBI MCLR plus 2%) and compensation, or continue and claim interest for every month of delay until possession. The eight-month delay is admitted.
The unregistered agreement is not the buyers' problem. Section 13(1) is a prohibition on the promoter; an allottee does not lose the Act's protection because the promoter failed to paper the deal.
Route: a Section 31 complaint against promoter and agent together, seeking (i) refund or interest, (ii) a direction to bring the ₹27 lakh into the escrow account, and (iii) execution and registration of the agreements. Penalty against Sunil goes to the adjudicating officer under Section 71; the refund direction sits in the Section 31 complaint.
Sunil's fee must go back. He was paid commission out of money that should have been in escrow, on transactions he structured to avoid registration, and the ₹27 lakh should be transferred to the project account the same day. He should expect a show-cause on cancellation of his registration. Commercially, for buyers who want out, refund with interest is usually a better outcome than a decree for possession.