No vanishing 13th floor: MahaRERA says numbering is fixed once plans are sanctioned

MahaRERA has held that developers cannot renumber floors after building plans are sanctioned, in an order arising from a housing society near Mumbai where flats on the approved 13th floor were sold and signposted as 1401, 1402 and onward. The regulator observed that a promoter who wishes to avoid the "unlucky" number 13 must reflect that in the plans before approval, and pointed to Section 14(2) of the RERA Act, which binds projects to their sanctioned plans.

The dispute surfaced through property tax bills: the municipal corporation's records follow the sanctioned plans, so homes marked 1401 at the door were billed as 1301 on paper. The mismatch across sanctioned plans, registered agreements and civic records reportedly affected more than 300 residents. Because the project was already complete, MahaRERA said it could not restrain the developer from continuing with the revised numbering and noted it lacks power to award compensation in such cases, directing residents toward the authority that issued the occupation certificate. Any future issues arising from the discrepancy, it said, remain the developer's responsibility.

Skipping the 13th floor is common practice across MMR marketing, which is what gives the order its reach. The floor number on an agreement for sale can differ from the one on the door — and it is the sanctioned plan that governs.

For buyers and societies, the practical takeaway is a new diligence item: match the flat number in the agreement against the sanctioned floor plan before registration, since discrepancies ripple into tax records, addresses and eventual resale paperwork.