RERA Project Audit & Utilisation Certificate

RERA project audit centres on the escrow account mandate in Section 4(2)(l)(D) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (a central statute), which requires a promoter to deposit 70% of amounts realised from allottees for a project into a separate RERA escrow account, to be used only for that project's construction cost and land cost. Withdrawals from this account must be in proportion to the percentage of project completion and require certification confirming that withdrawn amounts have been utilised for the project — issued jointly by a practising engineer, a practising architect (who certify physical progress/completion percentage) and a practising Chartered Accountant (who certifies proportionate cost utilisation), before withdrawal is permitted.

The Act sets this 70%/proportionate-withdrawal framework centrally, but the specific certification forms, their numbering, and the annual reporting cycle are prescribed by each state's own RERA Rules framed under Section 84 of the Act, and these vary across states — for instance, some states require a periodic CA certificate at each withdrawal (commonly referenced as Form 3) plus a comprehensive annual statement of project accounts within six months of financial year-end (commonly referenced as Form 5), while others number or structure these certificates differently. Because the form references, exact filing deadlines and any state-specific escrow percentage variations (some state Authorities have permitted deviations from the standard 70% on a project basis) differ by the state RERA authority under which a given project is registered, this service is scoped against the specific state's notified RERA Rules and the project's state Authority registration, rather than a single uniform national form.

RERA project audit is the examination of a registered real estate project against the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 and the state RERA rules — the verification of the project disclosures against the actuals, the utilisation of the project funds from the escrow account, the compliance with the sanctioned plans and the specifications, the progress against the timelines, and the reporting obligations to the authority. The audit is the check that the project the developer sold is the project the developer is delivering.

The RERA project audit tests the developer's compliance with the Act's promises — the funds received from the buyers must be in the escrow account and used for the project, the construction must match the sanctioned plans and the advertised specifications, the progress must follow the registered timelines, and the disclosures and the reports must be current. The audit is the homebuyer's protection and the authority's verification, and its findings are the record the complaints and the enforcement are built on.

The cost of the audit findings is the compliance action: the utilisation discrepancies that the authority acts on, the specification deviations that the buyers enforce, the registration that is put at risk. The audit that finds the problems early is the audit that saves the project from the enforcement.

This service is for developers, the authorities and the stakeholders needing project audits. We audit the project against the RERA Act and the state rules — the escrow and the fund utilisation, the disclosures and the specifications, the progress and the timelines, the reporting — document the findings with the evidence, and produce the audit report with the compliance position and the remediation, so the project's RERA compliance is known and correct.