Is it compulsory to pay stamp duty in under construction flat

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Hi. In Bombay there are many builders who don't enter into agreement with the purchasers in order to avoid the liability on the part of the builder under the agreement. So it's quite good that your builder is asking you to register the agreement. Moreso after coming into operation of RERA a builder has to compulsorily enter into a written agreement with the buyer before accepting any sum of money greater than 10% of total consideration. Further an agreement is a title document in your hand which records that the particular apartment has been sold to you among other things. This is infact protective for you as once the builder executes an agreement for the flat to be allotted to you, he can't sell the same flat to any other party as the registered document comes in public domain. So I highly recommend that you sign and register the agreement with the builder. Coming to stamp duty, yes it is compulsory for payment of stamp duty. Keep in mind that the stamp duty rates are upward revised every year. So if you keep on delaying the registration of the agreement, you may have to bear extra stamp duty due to the yearly upward revision in stamp duty. Lastly there is no penalty under RERA on the purchaser for non registration of agreement except for the fact that you may be running the risk of a double sale and additional stamp duty as explained above. Further there are obligations to be complied on the part of the purchaser under RERA and if I'm not mistaken, one of them is entering into agreement with the builder and getting the same registered when called by the builder. Obviously if the builder delays the registration of agreement after accepting more than 10% of total consideration, then he runs the risk of being in violation of RERA. So your builder has rightly asked you to register the agreement. As to your concern that you are not presently available in Bombay, you can simply execute a special power of attorney in favour of a trusted person for the purpose of signing the agreement and admitting the execution before the registration authority on your behalf. If you don't have money to pay for the stamp duty and registration fee then you can request the builder to let you simply sign the agreement now and for registration you will then have 4 months time from date of signing. So it's upto your builder. Thanx

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