How to check an MMR project for litigation before you pay the token

Tokens of ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh routinely change hands on a first site visit "to hold the price". Recovering that money from a project that turns out to be disputed is slow and often unsuccessful — so the litigation check belongs before the token, not after.

Start with MahaRERA (maharera.maharashtra.gov.in). Search the project and open its registration page: the Litigations section lists court cases the promoter has declared, with downloadable details; the complaints search shows what buyers have filed against the project or promoter and how the authority ruled; the uploaded title report and the deviation report (changes made to the model agreement for sale) are both worth reading. Check the promoter's other projects too — a builder fighting buyers elsewhere tends to repeat the pattern.

Promoter self-declarations are not the whole picture, so spend ten more minutes outside RERA. The e-Courts portal allows party-name searches across district courts (Thane, Panvel and so on), and the Bombay High Court site does the same for the developer's corporate entities. The MCA website's index of charges shows which lenders hold mortgages over the company and its land. For the specific plot, an Index II extract or e-search from the registration department (IGR) reveals registered mortgages and prior agreements on the land your tower stands on.

Litigation is not always fatal — some suits are routine commercial disputes. What matters is whether a case touches the land title or the approvals under your building. If anything surfaces, hold the token and commission an independent title search from a lawyer of your choosing; a few thousand rupees of vetting against a crore-scale commitment is the cheapest insurance in real estate. This briefing is educational and is not legal advice.