To provide relief to real estate developers and ensure that homebuyers get their homes with new timelines, the housing and urban affairs ministry will issue an advisory to states and Union Territories to treat COVID-19 as force majeure, said finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. States and Union Territories can suo moto extend the registration and completion dates of realty projects by six months if projects are registered on or after March 25. Due to COVID, projects stand the risk of defaulting on RERA timelines and these need to be extended. Regulatory authorities may extend this for another period of up to three months if needed.
