The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA), taking serious cognizance of irregularities, has initiated the scrutiny of all lapsed housing projects in the state and issued notices to around 11,000 such projects, including over 5,230 in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) alone. The regulator has issued these show cause notices to lapsed projects that were registered since May 2017. The notices have been issued to developers who have failed to update their project’s status and related information with MahaRERA even after the project’s completion date initially submitted with the regulator. The developers of the lapsed projects are expected to submit the Occupation Certificate (OC) or seek extension of project’s delivery date. Under this, so far, MahaRERA has initiated action by directly suspending or cancelling the project’s registration, imposing punitive action, issuing instructions to the Joint District Registrar directing not to register any purchase and sale of any flats in such projects. The bank accounts associated with such projects may be frozen. “As per the regulation, it is mandatory for the developers to submit OC along with Form 4 of their respective projects or to seek deadline revision. After the 30-day window provided to the developer expires and the developer has not initiated any attempt to submit OC with Form 4 or sought deadline’s extension, MahaRERA is left with no other alternative but to either cancel or suspend the project’s registration,” said Manoj Saunik, chairman, MahaRERA. This, according to him, also means imposing restrictions on the sale and purchase of flats in such projects and to freeze the bank accounts associated with the projects. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, makes it mandatory to update quarterly progress reports of every project. Of the total projects against which the show-cause notices have been issued, the MMR has the highest lapsed projects, followed by Pune region with 3,406, Nashik 815, Nagpur 548, Sambhaji Nagar 511, Amravati 201, Dadra & Nagar Haveli 43 and Daman & Diu 18 projects. At the time of applying for a MahaRERA registration number, every developer is expected to mention the scheduled date of project’s completion. Towards the completion date, occupancy certificate certifying the project has been completed is mandatory to be submitted.