Most guides to redevelopment stop at possession — the day members finally move back into their new flats. But two crucial legal steps typically remain after that day, and skipping or delaying them leaves a society in a surprisingly vulnerable position: without a properly registered society, and without conveyance of the land itself, a building’s residents don’t yet hold clear legal title to the ground their new home stands on.
Is your society considering redevelopment? Get a free first assessment of your plot from Mungekar Realty: what it can support, which regulation applies and what to watch out for. The society pays us nothing. Register your property or WhatsApp us on +91 98207 44734.
Step one: forming or reconstituting the society
Where a redevelopment involved a pre-existing cooperative housing society, that society generally continues into the new building, though its membership records, share certificates, and registered address typically need updating to reflect the new structure. Under the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act, a builder or developer is legally required to facilitate registration of the society once a defined threshold of flats has been sold or allotted — commonly cited as 60% — with a formation meeting requiring a minimum number of flat owners (recently reduced to five for smaller developments, from the earlier ten). For self-redevelopment projects, or where the composition of the building has changed significantly through the addition of free-sale flats, this can effectively mean forming a new society structure that incorporates both the original rehabilitation members and any new owners of sold units.
Step two: conveyance, the step most societies skip
Conveyance is the legal transfer of title to the land and building from the developer’s name into the society’s name. Under Section 11 of the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act, this transfer is legally required within four months of the society’s registration — and under Section 13 of the same Act, a developer who fails to convey without reasonable cause is technically committing an offence, punishable by imprisonment up to three years, a fine, or both. In practice, this deadline is very often missed. Commentary on this issue has long put the proportion of Maharashtra societies still lacking a conveyance deed at somewhere around 80% — sometimes because developers are simply negligent about completing the paperwork, and sometimes because a developer deliberately delays conveyance in the hope of retaining future development rights, such as unused FSI, on the property.
Why this matters, concretely
Without conveyance, a society legally owns the concrete structure but not the land beneath it — which means the society cannot independently authorise a future redevelopment, cannot raise finance against the property in its own name, and cannot fully exercise ownership rights over the plot. For a building that has just been through one redevelopment, this might feel like a distant, future-tense problem — but the next redevelopment cycle for this same building is likely decades away, and getting conveyance sorted immediately, while the paperwork trail is fresh and the original developer is still contactable, is far easier than trying to resolve it 25 years later when records have scattered and the developer entity itself may no longer exist.
If the developer doesn’t cooperate: deemed conveyance
Recognising how common developer non-cooperation had become, the Maharashtra government introduced the concept of deemed conveyance under Section 11 of MOFA in 2008, allowing a society to obtain legal title even without the developer’s active participation. The process runs through a Competent Authority (typically the District Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies), requires the society to submit documentation including its registration certificate, the chain of registered agreements for all flats with stamp duty and registration details, and property records, and — following a hearing where objections can be raised — results in an order for deemed conveyance if the application is in order. The overall timeline typically runs six months to a year, depending on the complexity of the case and how the District Deputy Registrar’s office is processing applications at the time; recent reforms have also introduced the PRATYAY MahaBhumi portal specifically to standardise and track deemed conveyance applications.
Registering the deed and updating records
Once a conveyance deed — whether voluntary or deemed — is finalised, it must be registered with the Sub-Registrar of Assurances to formally take legal effect. After registration, the society still has one further practical step: approaching the relevant government revenue and municipal offices to update land revenue records and property tax records to reflect the society, rather than the original developer, as the recognised owner. Skipping this last administrative step is a common oversight that can create confusion years later, particularly around property tax notices or future transactions.
A practical closing checklist
Once possession is handed over, a society’s committee should treat the following as unfinished business, not optional extras: confirm the society’s registration and membership records are updated to reflect the new building; request the conveyance deed from the developer in writing, with a clear timeline; if the developer doesn’t respond within the statutory four months, begin the deemed conveyance application rather than waiting indefinitely for voluntary cooperation; register the conveyance deed once obtained; and update land revenue and municipal property records to reflect the society as owner. None of these steps are as visible or as celebrated as the day members move back in, but they’re what actually secures the value of the redevelopment for the long term.
Where we can help
At Mungekar Realty, we encourage every society we advise to treat conveyance as part of the redevelopment project itself, not a follow-up task to handle later — and we’re happy to help societies at any stage of this process, whether that’s negotiating conveyance into the original Development Agreement upfront, or helping a society that’s already completed redevelopment pursue deemed conveyance now.