Your K-RERA order is final, sixty days have passed and the builder has paid nothing. To execute a RERA order in Karnataka you start a second proceeding, because the order does not enforce itself: an execution petition to the Authority under Section 40 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016, read with Rules 25 and 26 of the Karnataka Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Rules 2017. The Authority then issues a Revenue Recovery Certificate to the Deputy Commissioner of the district where the promoter's assets sit, who recovers the sum as an arrear of land revenue under Chapter XIV of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964, by distraint of movables and by attachment and auction of immovables. In parallel, a fresh complaint under Section 63 read with Section 69 puts a daily penalty on the promoter and its directors, and the Karnataka Real Estate Appellate Tribunal held on 30 June 2026 that a pending certificate is no bar to it.
Part of the RERA and homebuyer disputes practice at S Jain & Attorneys, Bangalore.
This page is for the allottee who already holds a refund order or an appellate judgment against a promoter who will not pay. How to win the order is in the pillar on builder delay and RERA remedies. What follows is the machinery that turns paper into money, and how slowly it turns.
| Stage | Provision | Who acts | What you file or receive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Execution petition | Section 40, Rules 25 and 26 | The Authority, in the original complaint | Memo of calculation, the order, proof of non-payment, asset schedule |
| 2. Execution order | Section 40, Rule 26 | The Authority | Order recording the default and the sum |
| 3. Revenue Recovery Certificate | Section 40(1), Rule 25, Section 190(c) Land Revenue Act | The Authority to the Deputy Commissioner | Certificate naming the defaulter, the amount and the district |
| 4. Notice of demand and coercive process | Sections 161 to 181 Land Revenue Act | The Deputy Commissioner through the Tahsildar | Section 162 notice, then distraint or attachment and auction |
| 5. Penalty complaint, in parallel | Sections 63 and 69 | The Authority, on a fresh Form N complaint | Daily penalty up to five per cent of project cost |
| 6. Writ, if the certificate sleeps | Article 226 | High Court of Karnataka | Direction to act within a fixed time |
The moving parts, in order.
Execution petition first
The order is not self-executing. You apply to the Authority in the same complaint number with a memo of calculation, and it passes an execution order.
Certificate to the DC
The Authority certifies the sum to the Deputy Commissioner of the district holding the promoter's assets, and the debt becomes an arrear of land revenue.
Distraint and attachment
After a written notice of demand the Deputy Commissioner may distrain and sell movables, or attach and auction immovables, under the Land Revenue Act.
How do I execute a RERA order in Karnataka when the builder is not paying?
File an execution petition before the Authority in the same complaint number, with a memo of calculation that brings the interest up to the date of filing. Rule 17 gives the promoter sixty days from the date the refund with interest becomes due, and the Authority's standard operative order repeats that window and adds that the complainant is at liberty to initiate action for recovery in accordance with law if the respondent fails to pay. Once the sixty days run out, nothing happens unless you make it happen.
The hook is Section 40. Sub-section (1): if a promoter fails to pay any interest or penalty or compensation imposed on him by the adjudicating officer, the Authority or the Appellate Authority, it is recoverable from him, in the manner prescribed, as an arrears of land revenue. Sub-section (2): a failure to comply with any other order or direction is enforced in the manner prescribed. Rule 25 supplies the manner for money: subject to Section 40(1), recovery as arrears of land revenue is carried out under the Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964 and its rules. Rule 26 supplies it for directions: every order is enforced by the body that passed it as if it were a decree of the principal civil court, which may also be asked to execute it.
The Rules prescribe no form and no fee for the execution petition, so it is an application in the original cause title: the order, the date the sixty days expired, a statement that nothing has been received, the memo of calculation, and a schedule of the promoter's assets with the district each sits in, since the certificate goes to one Deputy Commissioner. The prayer is for an execution order and a certificate to that officer.
Key takeaway. A refund order is a finding, not a payment. Recovery starts when you file the execution petition and bites only when the certificate reaches a Deputy Commissioner who has been told what to attach.
What is a Revenue Recovery Certificate and who issues it?
It is the Authority's certificate to the Deputy Commissioner of a district that a stated sum is due from a named defaulter under its order and is to be recovered as an arrear of land revenue. The Land Revenue Act receives it through Section 190(c), which lets sums declared by any other law to be recoverable as an arrear of land revenue be recovered under that Act in the same manner. Section 40(1) is such a law and Rule 25 is the bridge.
The certificate carries a weight the promoter cannot argue away in the revenue office. Section 160(2) makes a statement of account certified by the Deputy Commissioner or the Assistant Commissioner conclusive evidence of the arrear, its amount and the identity of the defaulter. He cannot reopen the RERA order before the Tahsildar, through whom the Deputy Commissioner acts.
The Authority publishes every certificate. Its Revenue Recovery Certificate page lists the complaint, the promoter, the project, the district, the amount and the judgement, execution and RRC dates, with a copy of each document. When I read it in mid-September 2026 its counters showed 2,603 certificates issued and 343 recovered, roughly one in eight. The Authority's order of 15 February 2025 in Complaint 00627/2024 describes the recovered money being deposited in the Authority's account, from which it is paid to the allottee.
Does the principal get recovered as land revenue, or only the interest?
The whole refund, principal and interest together, is recoverable under Section 40(1). The Supreme Court settled this in Newtech Promoters and Developers v State of Uttar Pradesh on 11 November 2021, a three-judge bench of Justices Uday Umesh Lalit, Ajay Rastogi and Aniruddha Bose. Promoters argued that the sub-section names only interest, penalty and compensation, so a certificate could issue for the interest but not the principal. The Court rejected that at paragraphs 139 to 141: there is no interest without a principal, the principal with interest is a composite amount quantified for recovery under Section 40(1), a strict reading would defeat the basic purpose of the Act, and the amount determined and refundable to the allottee is recoverable within the ambit of Section 40(1). Paragraph 25 calls the right of refund on demand under Section 18(1) an unconditional absolute right.
Money a lender paid to the promoter on your behalf is refund too. In Appeal 61/2024, decided on 6 March 2026 by Judicial Member Santhosh Kumar Shetty N. and Administrative Member Mahendra Jain, the Tribunal held at paragraph 26 that refund under Section 18 covers what was borrowed in the allottee's name under a subvention agreement and paid straight to the promoter, rejected the argument that closing the loan was compensation for the adjudicating officer alone, and directed the promoter to foreclose the loan within sixty days. Ask the Authority to quantify any such closure figure in the execution order so the certificate carries a number.
How do I quantify the amount: does interest keep running after the order?
Yes. The Authority's standard operative order says the interest due from the cut-off date up to the date of final payment will be calculated likewise and paid, so interest runs until the money reaches you, not until the order or the certificate. Rule 16 fixes the rate as the State Bank of India highest marginal cost of lending rate plus two per cent. SBI's tenor table effective 15 August 2026 puts the highest tenor, three years, at 8.80 per cent, so the Rule 16 rate is 10.80 per cent a year until SBI's next revision.
Build the memo period by period, the way the Authority's own orders do, which run one rate to a cut-off date and the Rule 16 rate after it. List each payment with its date, apply the rate in force in each period, include bank-disbursed sums where the order covers them, and total to the date of filing. Refresh it at the execution order, at the certificate and at the notice of demand. Ask that the execution order and the certificate record further interest at the Rule 16 rate till realisation, because a certificate with one frozen figure invites the revenue office to stop there.
Deadline warning. Section 44(2) gives the promoter sixty days from receipt of the order to appeal, and the proviso to Section 43(5) makes that appeal conditional on a deposit of at least thirty per cent of the penalty or the total amount payable to you, or both. If an appeal was filed and failed, that deposit is already sitting with the Tribunal.
What can the Deputy Commissioner actually attach and sell?
After a written notice of demand under Section 162, the Deputy Commissioner may use any one or more of the processes in Section 161: distraint and sale of the defaulter's movable property under Section 164, and attachment and sale of his immovable property under Sections 165 to 168, the sale in either case by public auction under Section 169. The other two entries, forfeiture of the occupancy on which land revenue itself is due and attachment of whole villages, rarely touch a promoter's debt. Arrest is not in the list.
Attachment under Section 165 is available when distraint is inexpedient or insufficient. Section 166 makes it an order prohibiting the defaulter from transferring or charging the property, proclaimed and affixed at the property, after which any transfer or charge by him is void against the State and the auction purchaser.
| Process | Section | What the Act says | Time built into the Act |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notice of demand | 162 | Issues once the arrear is payable, cost on the defaulter | None fixed |
| Distraint and sale of movables | 164 | Movables distrained and sold, CPC exemptions apply | None fixed, perishables sold at once under Section 172 |
| Attachment of immovables | 165, 166 | Prohibitory order proclaimed and affixed, later transfers void | None fixed |
| Proclamation and auction | 168, 169 | Prescribed notices, sale by public auction | As prescribed by the rules |
| Purchaser's deposit | 174, 175 | Twenty-five per cent at once, balance within fifteen days, re-sale on default | Fifteen days |
| Setting aside the sale | 176 | For material irregularity, mistake or fraud causing loss, or on depositing the arrear, costs and five per cent | Ninety days from the sale |
| Confirmation and certificate | 177, 179 | Sale confirmed, purchaser put in possession and entered in the land records | After the ninety days |
| Application of proceeds | 181 | Expenses of sale first, then the arrear, surplus to the person whose property was sold | On confirmation |
With the ninety days under Section 176, the fastest an attached flat becomes money is about four months from the auction, if the auction happens.
Whose property can be attached: the company's, the directors', the project land?
The certificate names the defaulter in the order, almost always the promoter company, so only that company's property is open to distraint and attachment. The route to the directors is Section 69, below, and it produces a penalty, not a transfer of the company's debt. Where the promoter is a firm, the Explanation to Section 69 treats a firm as a company and a partner as a director, so the partners are reached the same way. An individual promoter's own movables and immovables are open under Sections 164 and 165.
The project land is the promoter's immovable property only if title stands in its name, and under a joint development arrangement it often stays with a landowner who was not a party to your complaint. Land in the promoter's name is usually mortgaged. Section 158 gives the claim of the State Government under Chapter XIV precedence over any mortgage, but whether an allottee's certificate borrows that precedence is not decided in any order I have read, and the working assumption is that a mortgage registered before your attachment survives the auction and depresses the bids. The cleanest targets are unsold units with title in the promoter's name, its office premises, vehicles and plant. Give the revenue office the khata and survey particulars of each, because the Tahsildar has no investigative arm and acts on what the schedule tells him.
Bank balances are where the machinery is weakest. Chapter XIV knows distraint of goods and attachment of land and has no garnishee provision like Order 21 rule 46 of the Code, so whether a Tahsildar can freeze the promoter's current account is the first question to put to his office in writing. The contrast with the civil route is in the guide to execution of a money decree.
The DC's office is sitting on the certificate: what can I do?
Three things, in this order: a written representation to the Deputy Commissioner and the Tahsildar with an asset schedule, a memo before the Authority in the execution proceeding, and a writ petition to the High Court of Karnataka for a direction to execute the certificate within a fixed time. The Tribunal has seen the problem. In Appeal 33/2025 the certificate was dated 22 December 2022, and by 2026 the allottee's case was that neither the promoter nor the Deputy Commissioner and Tahsildar had done anything effective. The Authority had told her the Deputy Commissioner would act in the routine course. The Tribunal set that order aside.
The representation should attach the certificate, the order, a fresh memo and a schedule giving the survey or khata number of each immovable and the location of each movable, and ask for three acts: the notice of demand under Section 162, a prohibitory order under Section 166 over the named immovables, and where an asset lies in another district, a certified statement under Section 192 to the Deputy Commissioner there, who then proceeds as if the demand had arisen in his own district. A representation that asks the office to recover the money says nothing the certificate did not say. One that names a flat and asks for a prohibitory order gives the office a file it can move.
Before the Authority, file a memo reporting the inaction, and where the unexecuted part of the order is a direction rather than a sum, ask it to send the order to the principal civil court under Rule 26. If nothing moves, the writ jurisdiction is the ordinary remedy against a public officer who does not perform a statutory duty, and the relief is a direction to act on the certificate within a stated number of weeks. The procedure is in the guide on filing a writ petition in the High Court, and the file you have built by then is the record the writ needs.
Common mistake. Sending the Deputy Commissioner a certificate without a schedule of assets. The revenue office does not trace property. A representation that cannot name a flat, a survey number or a vehicle joins the 2,260 certificates that had produced no money when I read the Authority's list.
Can I get the builder and his directors penalised for not complying?
Yes. Section 63 makes a promoter who fails to comply with any order or direction of the Authority liable to a penalty for every day the default continues, cumulatively up to five per cent of the estimated cost of the project as determined by the Authority. Section 69 carries it into the company: every person in charge of the conduct of its business is deemed guilty with the company unless he proves the offence was committed without his knowledge or despite all due diligence, and any director or officer whose consent, connivance or neglect is proved is deemed guilty too.
The Tribunal's judgment of 30 June 2026 in Appeal 33/2025, by Chairperson Justice J.M. Khazi and Judicial Member Santhosh Kumar Shetty N., is the authority that this complaint runs alongside the certificate. The Authority had dismissed the allottee's Section 63 complaint on 15 February 2025 as not maintainable because execution and the certificate were already in process. The Tribunal held at paragraph 14 that non-compliance even after execution has begun is a fresh and independent cause of action, that execution under Section 40 and penalty under Section 63 operate in different fields, and that neither the pendency of execution nor the exhaustion of every coercive measure bars the penalty complaint while the promoter remains in wilful disobedience. It set the dismissal aside and directed the Authority to impose the penalty on the promoter and its directors, up to five per cent of the estimated project cost, payable within sixty days.
Two features of that judgment belong in your own complaint. The Tribunal relied on the Authority's order of 9 March 2026 in Complaints 01181/2024 and 01182/2024, which penalised the same promoter under Section 63 and called on its directors to show cause under Section 69, and applied parity under Article 14, so if your promoter has already been penalised on another allottee's complaint, cite that order. At paragraph 20 it treated the directors' own verifying affidavits as an admission that they were in charge. Plead the whole compliance history, name the directors with their periods in office, and file in Form N with the one thousand rupee fee under Rule 29. The penalty is not paid to you, since Section 76(2) credits it to the account the State Government specifies. Its value is pressure: personal exposure for the people who run the company gives a promoter a reason to pay the certificate that the certificate alone did not.
What if the order came from the Appellate Tribunal, not the Authority?
The recovery route is the same, because Section 40(1) covers sums imposed by the Appellate Authority as well, and Section 44(4) requires the Tribunal to send every order to the Authority, to which its judgments return the records, so the execution petition goes to the Authority with the Tribunal's judgment attached. What changes is the penalty for ignoring the order. Section 64 makes a promoter who fails to comply with an order of the Appellate Tribunal punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or a fine for every day of default cumulatively up to ten per cent of the estimated project cost, or both. That is an offence, not a penalty the Authority imposes: under Section 80 no court takes cognizance of it except on a written complaint by the Authority, and no court below a Metropolitan Magistrate or a Judicial Magistrate of the first class tries it, so the first step is a written request to the Authority to lodge that complaint.
A promoter's failed appeal also leaves the pre-deposit behind. The proviso to Section 43(5) bars the Tribunal from entertaining a promoter's appeal without a deposit of at least thirty per cent of the penalty, or the total amount payable to the allottee with interest and compensation, or both. In Appeal 22/2021, settled before the Lok Adalat on 12 March 2022, the registry was directed to pay the agreed sum to the allottee out of that deposit. An application for release of the deposit towards the order is the quickest money in this whole process.
Can I attach the flat I was buying, or other buyers' money?
Not as yours, and not the other buyers' money at all. Once you elected refund under Section 18 the unit went back into the promoter's stock. It can be attached and auctioned under Section 165, but as the promoter's property, sold to whoever bids. The other allottees' money is ring-fenced by the Act. Section 4(2)(l)(D) requires seventy per cent of the amounts realised from allottees to be kept in a separate scheduled bank account to cover the cost of construction and land, used only for that purpose and withdrawn only in proportion to completion. Asking the Deputy Commissioner to attach that account asks him to override the Act's own earmark for the buyers who stayed.
Should I file a Section 7 insolvency petition instead?
Only after measuring what it does to your order. An admission under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 overtakes the recovery machinery described here and converts your order into a claim before the resolution professional, where you are one creditor among many and the outcome is a plan or a liquidation, not payment of your certificate. The Code sets a minimum default and, for allottees, a minimum number of joint applicants. All of that is in the guides on homebuyer rights when the builder is in insolvency, whether a homebuyers' NCLT plea can halt a project and filing the Form CA claim. If another creditor has already taken the promoter in, those pages are your route.
Step by step: from final order to money in the bank
- Diarise the sixty days under Rule 17, and check for a promoter's appeal and its pre-deposit under Section 43(5).
- Build the memo of calculation period by period at the Rule 16 rate, including bank-disbursed sums the order covers, to the date of filing.
- Assemble the asset schedule: unsold units and land in the promoter's name with khata and survey numbers, premises, vehicles and plant, and property in other districts.
- File the execution petition in the original complaint number with the order, the memo and the schedule, praying for an execution order and a certificate that records further interest till realisation.
- Confirm the execution order and the certificate appear on the Authority's public list with the right amount and district.
- Serve a written representation on the Deputy Commissioner and the Tahsildar asking for the Section 162 notice, a Section 166 prohibitory order over the named immovables, and a Section 192 statement for other districts.
- File the fresh complaint under Section 63 read with Section 69 in Form N, pleading the compliance history and naming the directors.
- If the revenue office does not act, file an RTI application, a memo before the Authority, and then a writ petition for a direction to execute the certificate within a fixed period.
- At the auction watch the ninety days under Section 176 and the confirmation under Section 177, and apply for payment out under Section 181.
What does it cost and how long does it really take?
The official fees are small and the time is not. The Rules prescribe no fee for the execution petition, one thousand rupees for a fresh complaint under Rule 29 and five thousand rupees for an appeal under Rule 33, and the cost of the revenue notice goes on the defaulter's account under Section 162(2). Professional fees depend on how many forums you end up in.
The timelines come from the Authority's own list, read in mid-September 2026. On my reading of its dates, the gap between judgement and certificate commonly runs to six months or more, and a fair number of certificates take over a year. Execution order to certificate was quicker, a median of about five weeks. The recovered counter stood at 343 against 2,603. Those figures will have shifted by the time you read this, but the shape will not have: the certificate is the middle of the process, not the end. A promoter with unsold units and a complete asset schedule is a different case from one whose only asset is mortgaged land, and the difference is measured in years.
Three facts from the sections above decide most of these cases.
Interest runs till payment
The Authority's orders compute interest up to the date of final payment at the Rule 16 rate, SBI's highest MCLR plus two per cent, so every month of delay adds to the certificate.
Principal is recoverable
Newtech Promoters, decided by the Supreme Court on 11 November 2021, holds that the refund amount with interest is a composite sum recoverable under Section 40(1) as arrears of land revenue.
Pre-deposit sits with the Tribunal
A promoter whose appeal failed has already deposited at least thirty per cent of the sum payable to you under Section 43(5), and that money can be released towards the order.
Mistakes allottees make after winning
The commonest is treating the order as the end: the sixty days pass, the promoter talks about a settlement, and nothing is filed for a year while the saleable units go to other buyers. The second is filing for execution without a memo of calculation, so the certificate issues for the figure in the original order and the interest that ran after it is never certified. The third is a settlement that waives the running interest without a default clause reviving the full certificate if an instalment is missed. The fourth is assuming the flat is still yours: an allottee who elected refund cannot later block the auction of that unit. The fifth is a Section 63 complaint that alleges non-payment and nothing else, when the complaint that succeeded in Appeal 33/2025 pleaded the certificate, the revenue office's inaction, the promoter's lapsed projects and undisclosed mortgages, and named the directors.
What I tell clients when the order is not paid
Where these matters actually turn is on the asset schedule, and I say so at the first meeting. The law is settled enough: Newtech answers the principal question, the Rules answer the route, the Land Revenue Act answers what can be sold, and the Tribunal's judgment of June 2026 answers whether the penalty complaint runs alongside. None of that finds a flat with a clean khata in the promoter's name. That work is done from the project's registration page, the encumbrance certificates of the unsold units and the sale deeds the promoter has been registering to other buyers while pleading poverty. Clients who arrive with that schedule get a certificate that names property, and clients who arrive with the order alone get one that joins the list. The second thing I say is that the Section 63 complaint is not a side show: it is the only step that touches the people who decided not to pay, and on the orders I have read it is the step promoters answer. Both points are taken up on the RERA and homebuyer disputes practice page and the money recovery practice page. An allottee living abroad can run every step through a power of attorney, as the answer on filing at K-RERA from abroad explains.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a time limit for filing the execution petition after the sixty days expire?
The Act and the Karnataka Rules fix no limitation for the execution petition, but every month you wait is a month in which the promoter can sell the units you would otherwise attach, so file as soon as the sixty days under Rule 17 run out.
Does the Deputy Commissioner recover the interest that accrues after the certificate is issued?
The Authority's orders compute interest to the date of final payment, so it is owed, but the certificate carries a figure. Ask the Authority to record in the execution order and the certificate that further interest runs at the Rule 16 rate till realisation, and raise the point in writing with the Tahsildar at the first hearing.
Can the Deputy Commissioner arrest the builder for not paying?
No. Section 161 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act lists forfeiture, distraint and sale of movables, attachment and sale of immovables and attachment of villages, and arrest is not among them. Imprisonment enters only through Section 64, for disobeying an order of the Appellate Tribunal, and that is a prosecution on the Authority's complaint before a magistrate.
Who pays the auction costs and what happens to any surplus?
Section 181 applies the sale proceeds first to the expenses of the sale, then to the arrear on the certificate, and pays any surplus to the person whose property was sold. The cost of the notice of demand is recoverable from the defaulter under Section 162(2).
Can I file the Section 63 penalty complaint while the certificate is still pending with the DC?
Yes. In Appeal 33/2025, decided on 30 June 2026, the Karnataka Real Estate Appellate Tribunal held that execution under Section 40 and penalty under Section 63 operate in different fields and that a pending certificate is no bar to the penalty complaint against the promoter and its directors.
Will the penalty under Section 63 be paid to me?
No. Section 76(2) credits sums realised by way of penalties imposed by the Authority or the Tribunal in a State to the account the State Government specifies. Its use to you is the pressure it puts on the promoter and its directors to pay the certificate.
What if the promoter's assets are in another district or another state?
Within Karnataka, Section 192 lets the Deputy Commissioner holding the demand send a certified statement of account to the Deputy Commissioner of the district where the property is, who then recovers as if the demand arose there. Property outside Karnataka is beyond the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, and the practical routes are the second limb of Rule 26 or the insolvency process.
The promoter wants to settle in instalments after the certificate is issued: should I agree?
Only with a written settlement that keeps the certificate alive, applies each instalment to interest first, and provides that on any missed instalment the entire certified sum with running interest becomes recoverable at once. A settlement that withdraws the certificate in exchange for a promise puts you back to the day the order was passed.
This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.
