Punjab RERA 2026: the 4-month extension and 824 lapsed projects

Short answer: Any Tricity project on land above 500 sq m or with more than 8 units must hold a live registration number before it is advertised, booked or sold — Punjab RERA for Mohali, Zirakpur, Kharar and Mullanpur, and the Panchkula bench of Haryana RERA for Panchkula. The Punjab RERA portal showed 2,076 registered projects and 824 lapsed registrations in September 2026, so the check that matters is the validity date on the certificate, not the number on the brochure. The Centre’s advisory of 31 July 2026 moves eligible completion dates by four months; it does not erase delay that had already run, and it does not rewrite your agreement for sale.

2,076Projects registeredPunjab RERA portal, Sept 2026
824Lapsed registrationssame portal, same day
4 monthsForce-majeure extensionMoHUA advisory, 31 July 2026
500 sq mRegistration thresholdor more than 8 apartments

Most buyers in Mohali and Zirakpur now ask for a RERA number. That is progress. The problem is what happens next: the executive reads out a code like PBRERA-SAS81-PR0XXX, the buyer writes it down, and nobody opens the certificate. A registration number is a receipt, not a guarantee. It does not tell you whether the registration is still alive, whether your tower sits inside it, or what the promoter owes you if the date slips.

Hoomzz lists physically verified properties for sale and rent across Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula and Zirakpur with zero brokerage. A note on where people look first: plenty of Tricity buyers now find projects through local real estate Instagram pages and creators before they open any portal, which is fine for shortlisting and useless for verification — a reel does not carry a registration certificate.

What registration legally means, in three sections

Section 3 is the registration rule. No promoter may advertise, market, book, sell or offer for sale any plot, apartment or building in a project without registering it, where the land exceeds 500 square metres or the project has more than eight apartments. A “pre-launch” price collected before registration is not a discount. It is a transaction the Act prohibits, and Section 59 puts a penalty of up to ten per cent of the estimated project cost on it — payable to the authority, not to you.

Section 11(2) is the one nobody quotes and every buyer can use. Every advertisement and prospectus for a registered project must prominently carry the registration number and the authority’s website address. A hoarding on the Kharar bypass or a sponsored post that shows a project and carries no number is not making a design choice. That is the fastest red flag available.

The check most buyers skip: open the registration certificate, read the completion date and the validity date on it, then compare both against the possession date the sales team quoted you. If the two disagree, the certificate wins.

Which regulator actually holds your project

The Tricity sits across a state, another state and a union territory, so “is it RERA registered” has more than one portal behind it. Searching the wrong one produces a false negative — or gets you the line “it is registered, just not on that site”.

Which authority registers a project, by Tricity location (September 2026)
Where the project is	Authority	Portal	What to watch
Mohali (SAS Nagar), Zirakpur, Kharar, Dera Bassi, Mullanpur / New Chandigarh	Real Estate Regulatory Authority, Punjab	rera.punjab.gov.in	Numbers carry a district code — SAS Nagar projects read PBRERA-SAS…
Panchkula, Pinjore, Kalka	Haryana RERA, Panchkula bench	haryanarera.gov.in	Haryana runs two independent authorities; the Gurugram bench covers only Gurugram district
Chandigarh UT	Confirm before you rely on it	Ask which authority issued the certificate	Chandigarh has historically been handled outside Punjab’s own authority; new project supply inside the UT is small

The Chandigarh row is deliberately blunt: Hoomzz could not confirm one settled answer for UT projects from official sources in September 2026, and guessing here would be worse than saying so. If a promoter selling inside Chandigarh cannot name the issuing authority and show you the entry on that authority’s own site, treat it as unverified. For the mechanics of searching a project, downloading Form C and pulling up past orders against a builder, Hoomzz has a separate walkthrough on checking Punjab RERA and builder credentials online.

2,076 registered, 824 lapsed — read the validity date

On the day this was written the Punjab RERA home page carried two counters side by side: 2,076 registered projects and 824 lapsed registrations. A lapsed registration means the project was registered and the registration ran out without a valid extension on record. Construction may still be going on, flats may still be quoted, and the number on the brochure is still a real number that was once issued. So a “the RERA number exists” check passes and tells you very little. The same portal showed 4,604 complaints decided, so the remedy is real — it simply arrives after the money has gone.

Read three things off the certificate instead. The validity date, because registration is granted only up to a stated date and the entry drops into the lapsed list past it unless an extension is on record. The phase and tower coverage, because large townships in Mohali and New Chandigarh register phase by phase, and a certificate covering Phase 1 does not authorise the sale of a Phase 2 flat. And the promoter name, because the company on the certificate and the company whose account you pay into must be the same legal entity.

The four-month extension of 2026: what it moves, and what it does not

The chain of events is short. On 29 April 2026 the Ministry of Finance classified the West Asia conflict as war for force-majeure purposes. On 31 July 2026 the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs advised state regulators to extend registration and completion timelines by four months for eligible projects, using the power the Act gives them under Section 6. On 11 August 2026 Haryana RERA passed its order doing that. Eligibility: the completion date, revised or extended, must fall on or after 28 February 2026, and the project must have been registered on or before 31 July 2026. No separate promoter application is needed where the regulator passes a common order.

The 2026 force-majeure extension: what it changes for a Tricity buyer
What it does	What it does not do
Moves the completion date recorded against an eligible registration by four months	Help a project whose completion date fell before 28 February 2026 — one already two years late gains nothing
Applies automatically where the regulator has passed a common order	Apply to projects registered after 31 July 2026
Keeps an eligible registration from lapsing during those four months	Rewrite the possession date written into your builder–buyer agreement
Gives the promoter a documented reason for a four-month slip	Excuse anything beyond four months, or delay unrelated to the cited cause

Two cautions. First, Hoomzz could not locate a corresponding published order on the Punjab RERA circulars page as of 2 September 2026, though that page’s latest visible entries are years old, so its silence proves little. If a Mohali sales team says your date has moved by four months, ask for the order number and date. A real order has both.

Second, the timeline recorded against a registration and the possession date in your agreement for sale are two different dates under two different provisions, and a Section 18 delay claim is keyed to the agreement. Extending a registration does not by itself rewrite that agreement. A promoter who says the extension has settled the question is giving you one side of an open argument.

What a RERA number does not protect you from

This is where buyer expectations run ahead of the statute. Registration is a disclosure and escrow regime, not a quality certificate and not a guarantee of delivery.

Registration does cover

Sale priced on RERA carpet area, not a super area of the builder’s choosing
Seventy per cent of collections held in a project escrow account, drawn against certified progress
A completion date on public record, with quarterly progress reports against it
Five-year structural defect liability from handover under Section 14(3)
A complaint route to the authority instead of a civil suit

Registration does not cover

Whether the builder is solvent — the authority registers projects, not balance sheets
Whether the project finishes on time; it fixes a date and a remedy, not an outcome
Projects under 500 sq m or eight units, and completed projects holding a completion certificate
Resale flats sold by an individual owner, which sit outside the regime
Recovery speed — an order in your favour still has to be executed

Two checks belong beside this one. Ask what carpet area you are paying for, because the loading factor decides your real per-square-foot price — the arithmetic is in the Hoomzz guide to carpet area versus built-up and super area. If you are buying a plot rather than a flat, the questions change entirely, and the Hoomzz comparison of GMADA and HSVP auction plots against private township plots covers those.

The checks, in order, before you pay anything

Get the number in writingBy email or WhatsApp, not verbally. A promoter who will not put it in writing has answered the question.
Open the authority’s own portalThe regulator’s site, not an aggregator and not a PDF the sales office hands you.
Read the validity and completion datesCompare both against the possession date promised in the meeting, before you discuss price.
Match the tower to the certificateConfirm the exact tower, block or phase you are being sold appears in the registered project.
Check who you are payingThe payee must be the promoter entity named on the certificate. Never a personal account, never a marketing company.
Search past orders against the promoterThe authority publishes them. A pattern of delay-interest orders takes ten minutes to find.
Ask for the extension order, if invokedGet its number and date, and confirm your project falls inside the eligibility window.

Hoomzz lists physically verified resale and new-project homes across the Tricity with zero brokerage — browse properties for sale in Tricity or start from an area on the Tricity locations page. For a check on launch-price maths, the Hoomzz breakdown of Hero Homes Sector 88 resale prices and yields shows what a delivered Mohali project actually resells for.

Frequently asked questions

How can I check if a Tricity project is RERA registered?

Search the project on the regulator that covers its location: rera.punjab.gov.in for Mohali, Zirakpur, Kharar, Dera Bassi and Mullanpur, and haryanarera.gov.in for Panchkula. Enter the project name, promoter name or registration number, then open the certificate to read the completion date, the validity date and the towers covered. Viewing project details is free and needs no account.

What does RERA registration actually protect a buyer from?

Registration forces sale on certified carpet area, requires seventy per cent of buyer collections to sit in a project escrow account drawn against certified construction progress, puts a completion date on public record, and gives five years of structural defect liability under Section 14(3). It does not certify that the builder is financially sound or guarantee the project finishes on time. It fixes a date and a remedy, not an outcome.

Why were some 2026 projects given a four-month deadline extension?

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs advised state regulators on 31 July 2026 to extend registration and completion timelines by four months, after the Ministry of Finance classified the West Asia conflict as war for force-majeure purposes on 29 April 2026. Eligibility is limited to projects whose completion date falls on or after 28 February 2026 and which were registered on or before 31 July 2026. Haryana RERA passed its order on 11 August 2026, and no separate promoter application is required where a common order exists.

Does the four-month extension cancel my delay compensation claim?

Not automatically. The timeline recorded against a project registration and the possession date written into a builder–buyer agreement are two different dates, and a Section 18 delay claim is keyed to the agreement. Extending a registration under Section 6 does not by itself rewrite that agreement, and delay that ran before 28 February 2026 falls outside the extension in any case. Whether force majeure defeats a particular claim is argued case by case.

Can a builder legally advertise before RERA registration?

No. Section 3 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 bars advertising, marketing, booking or selling in a project above 500 square metres or eight apartments without registration. Section 11(2) requires every advertisement for a registered project to carry the registration number and the authority’s website prominently, and Section 59 sets a penalty of up to ten per cent of the estimated project cost for selling unregistered. Treat “RERA applied for” and “pre-launch” as the same warning.

Where do I file a RERA complaint in Punjab?

Complaints against a promoter for a Punjab project are filed online at rera.punjab.gov.in under Section 31 using Form M, after creating a complainant login and uploading supporting documents with the fee. Form N is the separate application to the adjudicating officer where the relief sought is compensation under Section 71. Complaints about a Panchkula project go to the Panchkula bench of Haryana RERA instead, and filing in the wrong forum will cost months.

Sources, and what here is judgement rather than data

Checked facts. The registration threshold, the Section 11(2) advertisement rule, the Section 59 penalty, the escrow requirement and the five-year defect liability come from the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016. Project, lapsed-registration and complaint counts were read off the Punjab RERA home page on 2 September 2026.

Judgement, not data. The reading that a Section 6 registration extension does not by itself rewrite an agreement’s possession date is our view of how the two provisions sit together, not a decided ruling; anyone with a live claim should take legal advice. Treating a Chandigarh UT project as unverified until the promoter names the issuing authority reflects what we could not confirm from official sources, not a finding that any such project is irregular. The ordering of the seven checks is editorial.

👈 This comparison is based on market observations and publicly available data. Users should verify details independently.

Punjab RERA registration in 2026: the four-month extension, 824 lapsed registrations, and what a RERA number does not protect you from