Form F or Form CA? The Homebuyer's Claim Form in a Builder's Insolvency, and How to Fix a Wrong Filing

Form F vs Form CA comes down to a single question: did you pay the builder as an allottee under a real estate project? If you did, the Explanation to Section 5(8)(f) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 deems that money a financial debt, you are a financial creditor in a class, and Regulation 8A of the CIRP Regulations says you shall submit your claim in Form CA to the interim resolution professional. Form F, under Regulation 9A, exists for a creditor who is neither a financial creditor nor an operational creditor, and a homebuyer who files it gives up the class, the representative, the committee vote and the higher rank in liquidation for nothing.

Part of the RERA and homebuyer disputes practice at S Jain & Attorneys, Bangalore.

This page is written for the buyer who has a public announcement with a date on it and two apartment WhatsApp groups giving opposite advice. It puts the two forms side by side, shows why the two usual sources of "file Form F" advice fail, and sets out how a wrong filing is corrected and what a late correction costs. Filling in the eleven entries of Form CA is covered in our Form CA guide, and this article does not repeat it.

Form F vs Form CA: which one does a homebuyer file?

A homebuyer files Form CA. The table is the whole comparison, with the provision behind each row.

Key takeaway. The form does not decide your status, the law does, but the form decides whether the interim resolution professional records that status correctly and whether your choice of representative is counted. An allottee on Form F is a financial creditor who has asked to be logged as something less.

What makes me a financial creditor in a class, and not an ordinary creditor?

Three definitions and one Supreme Court judgment. Section 5(7) defines a financial creditor as any person to whom a financial debt is owed. Section 5(8)(f) extends financial debt to "any amount raised under any other transaction, including any forward sale or purchase agreement, having the commercial effect of a borrowing", and the Explanation added in 2018 removes the argument: any amount raised from an allottee under a real estate project "shall be deemed to be an amount having the commercial effect of a borrowing", with allottee and real estate project carrying the meanings in Section 2(d) and 2(zn) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016.

The RERA definition is wider than people assume: Section 2(d) expressly "includes the person who subsequently acquires the said allotment through sale, transfer or otherwise", so a resale buyer is an allottee and a tenant is not.

Pioneer Urban Land and Infrastructure v Union of India, decided by the Supreme Court on 9 August 2019, upheld the 2018 amendment and held at paragraph 86 that allottees "were included in the main provision, i.e. Section 5(8)(f) with effect from the inception of the Code, the explanation being added in 2018 merely to clarify doubts that had arisen". Its conclusions record that the consumer, RERA and Code remedies are concurrent, so a pending case elsewhere does not change what you are inside the insolvency.

The class comes from Section 21(6A)(b). Where a financial debt is owed to a class of creditors exceeding the specified number, the interim resolution professional applies to the tribunal with the list and the name of an insolvency professional to act as their authorised representative. Regulation 2(1)(aa) fixes the number at "a class with at least ten financial creditors". Ten allottees in the builder's books make a class, and you do not apply to join it: Regulation 4A(1) requires the interim resolution professional to ascertain the classes from the books, which is why the public announcement already names the class and three candidate representatives. Form B is not yours either, because Section 5(21) confines operational debt to goods, services, employment and statutory dues. Our note on operational debt and financial debt takes that distinction further.

The status test in one screen, so that you can apply it to yourself.

Who files Form F, then?

The creditor who fits none of the other four forms. Regulation 9A(1) applies to "a person claiming to be a creditor, other than those covered under regulation 7, 8, 8A or 9", which are the operational creditor's Form B, the ordinary financial creditor's Form C, the class creditor's Form CA and the workman's Form D. Whoever is left over, and still has a claim within Section 3(6), a right to payment "whether or not such right is reduced to judgment", files Form F. A person owed compensation rather than the return of money advanced is the typical Form F claimant.

The Supreme Court has shown where a homebuyer can drop out of the financial creditors' block. In Jaypee Kensington Boulevard Apartments Welfare Association v NBCC (India) Ltd, decided on 24 March 2021, some homebuyers argued that buyers with delivered flats should not have been taken out of the committee. The court rejected the point at paragraph 169: a person to whom no financial debt is owed does not stand as a financial creditor and can only be taken out of that block. A buyer who has received the flat he paid for, and whose remaining grievance is a compensation figure, is the kind of claimant Form F exists for. It is a narrow category, dealt with in the possession section below, and Form F is no safe harbour for a buyer who is unsure: its ten particulars have no entry for a representative because the form assumes you are outside the committee.

Can I file Form C on my own instead of Form CA with the class?

No. Regulation 8(1) confines Form C to "a financial creditor, other than a financial creditor belonging to a class of creditors", Regulation 8A(1) uses "shall" for the class form, and the public announcement states that a class creditor "shall indicate its choice of authorised representative" in Form CA. Form C is built for a lender: entries 4 and 5 ask for the amount covered by security interest and by guarantee and for the names of guarantors, and an allottee has nothing to put there.

Filing Form C does not take you out of the class, which is ascertained from the company's books under Regulation 4A(1), not from the form you chose. What it does is quieter and worse: Regulation 16A(1) selects the representative from the choices in the class form received within time, a Form C carries no choice, and you have handed your say in who speaks for you to your neighbours while giving the interim resolution professional a reason to write back asking what you meant.

What does the authorised representative decide, and what does he not?

He does not decide your form, receive your claim or verify it. Regulation 16A(5) carries a Clarification in those terms: "The authorised representative shall have no role in receipt or verification of claims of creditors of the class he represents." The claim, the form, the amount and the category are between you and the interim resolution professional, who supplies the representative with the class list under Regulation 16A(4), so a misfiled buyer is invisible to him until the list is corrected.

What he does is vote, and he votes for you whether you instruct him or not. Section 25A(3A), inserted in 2019, provides that he "shall cast his vote on behalf of all the financial creditors he represents in accordance with the decision taken by a vote of more than fifty per cent. of the voting share of the financial creditors he represents, who have cast their vote". The fifty per cent is of those who voted, not of the class. Jaypee Kensington at paragraph 165.1 applied that to the objectors' own figures: with much of the class abstaining, ayes of 34.10 per cent of voting share against nays of 1.05 per cent carried the whole class. The court held at paragraph 165 that there "is no scope for any homebuyer suggesting himself to be a dissenting financial creditor merely because he was not with majority within the class", and at paragraph 167 that once the class is deemed to have voted in favour, "any particular constituent of that class cannot be heard in opposition to the plan by way of objection or appeal". The bank that voted against the same plan kept its separate rights under Section 30(2)(b). The outvoted buyer in the class did not.

Your weight inside the class is fixed by Regulation 16A(7): voting share in proportion to the financial debt, including interest at eight per cent a year unless a different rate was agreed. Under 16A(9) he circulates the agenda and may seek preliminary views, and under 16A(10) he must help the class evaluate resolution plans, keep it updated and represent it before the tribunal. If the class is unhappy with him, Regulation 16A(3A) lets creditors holding not less than ten per cent of the class's voting share seek his replacement.

"Part of the project is occupied, so file Form F": why the argument fails

Status under the Code is per allottee, not per tower. The Explanation to Section 5(8)(f) speaks of the amount raised from "an allottee", Regulation 8A(2) proves the debt by your agreement, allotment letter and receipts, and nothing in Form CA asks whether the project or any block has an occupancy certificate. A buyer in an unfinished block does not lose his financial debt because a neighbour in a finished block has moved in.

The developers tried a version of this in Pioneer Urban. At paragraph 53 they listed five categories of allottee, from those who had taken possession and executed sale deeds, with or without a claim for delay compensation, to those still waiting and seeking a refund, and argued that so mixed a group could not be one class. The court repelled the challenge at paragraphs 54 and 55: everyone who advanced money to the builder is a financial creditor, and Section 25A(3A) "goes a long way to ironing out any creases" in a class that is not homogeneous. Mixed states of completion are the normal condition of the class.

There is one honest case on the other side. If you have taken possession, hold a registered sale deed, and your only remaining claim is compensation for delay or a defect, the amount you raised has been answered by a flat and what is owed to you is compensation rather than money advanced. That is the situation Jaypee Kensington describes at paragraph 169, and a buyer in it may well be a Form F claimant. The practical test is whether any part of what you paid remains unanswered: an amenity paid for and never built, a parking slot, a deposit the builder holds. If it does, file Form CA, describe the position at entry 6, and let the interim resolution professional decide with reasons under Regulation 13(1A).

Common mistake. Reading the occupancy certificate for one block as a verdict on every buyer in the project. The certificate says nothing about whether money is still owed to the buyer in the next block, and the Code asks only that.

"You have a RERA order, so you are a decree-holder, file Form F": why you still file Form CA

A RERA refund or interest order does not move you out of the class. The Supreme Court settled the point in Vishal Chelani v Debashis Nanda on 6 October 2023, where the resolution professional had treated allottees holding Uttar Pradesh RERA refund orders as a separate sub-class and the plan gave buyers without orders terms fifty per cent better. The court set that aside: Section 5(8)(f) makes no distinction between one set of allottees and another, and since "it is only home buyers that can approach and seek remedies under RERA", treating a segment of the class differently because some had taken their deposits back under an order "would be highly inequitable". The order merely crystallises the underlying claim and "does not alter or disturb the status" of the allottee as a financial creditor. The court called the distinction "hyper-classification" contrary to Article 14 and declared the appellants financial creditors under the Explanation, to be treated with the other homebuyers.

The Code's own definitions point the same way. Section 3(10) says a creditor includes a decree-holder, and Section 3(6) says a claim is a right to payment whether or not reduced to judgment. Being a decree-holder describes the state of your proof, not the nature of your debt. The RERA order goes into Form CA as a document at entry 5, the principal and any interest it awarded up to the insolvency commencement date go into the figure at entry 4, and the form is still Form CA. Where the RERA case itself stands during the moratorium is a different question, answered in our guide on homebuyer rights when the builder is in insolvency.

What happens if I filed the wrong form?

Nothing irreversible, if you correct it inside the claim window. The interim resolution professional verifies every claim as on the insolvency commencement date within seven days from the last date under Regulation 13(1), and under Regulation 13(1A), as substituted in June 2026, must "either admit or reject the claim, in whole or in part" and communicate the decision with reasons within seven days. Regulation 10 lets him call for evidence or clarification, and a Form F from a person the books show as an allottee is exactly the claim he should be querying.

The correction is a letter and a form. Write to the interim resolution professional at the address at entry 10 of the public announcement, say the earlier submission was in the wrong form, submit Form CA electronically with the same documents and your choice at entry 11, and ask that the earlier form be treated as withdrawn. Keep the acknowledgement.

Timing decides what the correction is worth. Regulation 12(1) allows a claim after the announced date "up to the date of issue of request for resolution plans under regulation 36B or ninety days from the insolvency commencement date, whichever is later", with reasons for delay beyond ninety days, so the money can still be claimed. But the proviso to Regulation 16A(1) says the choice of a representative in a class form "shall not be considered, if that Form is received after the time stipulated in the public announcement". A corrected Form CA filed after the date keeps your claim in the class and loses your say in who represents it. Claims arriving after even that window have a last door in Regulation 13(1B): those received "up to seven days before the date of meeting of creditors for voting on the resolution plan or the initiation of liquidation" are verified and categorised as acceptable or not, you are told within seven days with reasons, and the acceptable ones go to the committee and to the tribunal for condonation of delay under 13(1C). By then the plan may have been written without you.

If the interim resolution professional refuses to re-categorise a claim the documents show to be an allottee's, the tribunal decides. Section 60(5) gives the National Company Law Tribunal jurisdiction over "any claim made by or against the corporate debtor" and "any question of priorities or any question of law or facts, arising out of or in relation to the insolvency resolution". That application, with the agreement, receipts and correspondence, is the remedy.

Deadline warning. The date in the public announcement is fourteen days from the interim resolution professional's appointment, and it is the only date on which your choice of representative counts. A corrected Form CA after it saves the claim under Regulation 12(1) and forfeits the choice under the proviso to Regulation 16A(1).

Can the interim resolution professional reject my Form CA, and what does "reject" mean?

He can, in whole or in part, and since June 2026 Regulation 13(1A) obliges him to give reasons within seven days. Rejection takes one of three shapes: the amount is cut to what the documents prove, with Regulation 14 allowing a best estimate and a later revision, the claim is admitted but categorised outside the class, which is the delivered-flat situation, or nothing is admitted because the records show nothing due, which is where Regulation 11, putting the cost of proof on the creditor, bites a buyer who paid in cash without receipts.

You can see what he did. Regulation 13(2) requires the list of creditors, with the amount claimed and the amount admitted against each name, to be open to inspection by those who submitted proofs, displayed on the company's website, filed on the Board's platform and with the tribunal, and presented at the first committee meeting. Check your entry within days of the last date. The route out of a wrong decision is documents under Regulation 10 first, then Section 60(5), not an appeal to the representative and not the committee's vote, which decides the plan and not the list.

What is each form worth if the builder goes into liquidation?

One clause of Section 53(1), and it is the clause the government's dues sit between. Section 53(1) distributes the proceeds of liquidation in this order: (a) process and liquidation costs, (b) twenty-four months of workmen's dues and secured creditors who relinquished security, (c) twelve months of other employees' dues, (d) "financial debts owed to unsecured creditors", (e) two years of Central and State Government dues and any secured creditor's shortfall after enforcing security, (f) "any remaining debts and dues", (g) preference shareholders and (h) equity shareholders. At each stage the debts in a class are paid in full or, if the proceeds run out, in equal proportion.

A Form CA claim is a financial debt owed to an unsecured creditor and sits at (d). A Form F claim sits at (f), behind two years of tax and statutory dues and every secured lender's shortfall, and in a real estate liquidation the money rarely reaches (f) at all. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Act, 2026, enacted in April 2026, added Explanations to clauses (b) and (e) and left (d) and (f) exactly as they were. The ranking matters before liquidation too: Section 30(4) lets the committee take into account "the order of priority amongst creditors as laid down in sub-section (1) of section 53" when it approves a plan.

What the two forms buy you, in four lines.

Step by step: from the public announcement to a verified claim

1. Find the public announcement in Form A, published under Regulation 6(2) in two newspapers and on the company's and the Board's websites. Note entry 6 (commencement date), entry 10 (address), entry 11 (last date), entry 13 (the three names) and entry 14 (where the forms are).
2. Apply the test. Money paid as an allottee, any part of it still unanswered by a flat, means Form CA. A pure compensation claim after possession is the only homebuyer case for Form F.
3. Assemble the Regulation 8A(2) documents: agreement for sale, allotment letter, every receipt, bank statements, the lender's disbursement letters and any RERA or consumer order.
4. Complete Form CA: the total as on the commencement date at entry 4, the representative at entry 11, the declaration and the verification.
5. Submit it electronically to the address at entry 10 on or before the date at entry 11, and keep the acknowledgement.
6. Answer any Regulation 10 query at once, and watch for the decision with reasons due under Regulation 13(1A).
7. Inspect the list of creditors under Regulation 13(2) and compare the admitted amount and category with your form.
8. Give the representative preliminary views when he asks under Regulation 16A(9) and voting instructions when the committee votes.
9. If the form or category is wrong, correct it by letter and a fresh Form CA, and if refused, apply under Section 60(5).

What it costs and how long it takes

The claim form carries no fee. Neither the Code nor the regulations prescribe one, and Regulation 11 puts the cost of proving a debt on the creditor. The representative's fee is not yours either: Regulation 16A(8) fixes it at Rs 30,000, Rs 40,000 or Rs 50,000 for each committee meeting he attends, by the size of the class, and Rs 10,000, Rs 12,000 or Rs 15,000 for each class meeting he convenes, and makes it part of the insolvency resolution process cost, which ranks first under Section 53(1)(a). Professional help with a claim and a correction letter is indicatively in the low tens of thousands of rupees, more for a contested Section 60(5) application.

The clock runs like this. The public announcement comes within three days of the interim resolution professional's appointment (Regulation 6(1)) and the last date for claims is fourteen days from that appointment (Regulation 6(2)(c)). Verification follows within seven days of the last date and the decision with reasons within seven days after that (Regulation 13(1) and (1A)). The representative's appointment application and the committee report follow within two days of verification, and the first meeting within seven days of the report (Regulations 16A(2) and 17). The process is to finish within one hundred and eighty days of admission under Section 12(1), extendable by not more than ninety days under Section 12(3). A Section 60(5) application is measured in months.

Where these filings go wrong: what I tell clients

What I tell clients in this position is that the form question is decided by three documents and one date, and by nothing said in a group chat. The agreement, the allotment letter and the receipts decide the status. The date at entry 11 of the public announcement decides whether the choice of representative counts. Almost every wrong filing traces back to one of two sentences, "part of the project has OC, so we are not financial creditors" or "you already have a RERA order, so you are a decree-holder and go on Form F", and neither survives the statutory text. The other thing I say is that the correction is cheap and the delay is not. A Form F filed on the eighth day and replaced with Form CA on the tenth costs an email. The same correction on the fortieth day keeps the money in the class and loses the vote on who represents it, and the buyer who waits for the committee to be constituted before asking ends up before the tribunal.

The recurring mistakes, so you can check your own filing against them.

• Filing Form F because another block has an occupancy certificate, when the test is whether money is still owed to you.
• Filing Form F because a RERA authority has already ordered a refund, when Vishal Chelani keeps the decree-holder in the class.
• Sending the corrected form to the representative, who has no role in receipt or verification, instead of to the interim resolution professional at entry 10.
• Correcting the form after the date and assuming the choice at entry 11 still counts, when the proviso to Regulation 16A(1) says it does not.
• Treating a rejection as final, when Regulation 13(1A) requires reasons and Section 60(5) gives the tribunal jurisdiction over the claim.

If the builder of your flat in Bengaluru has been admitted and the date is running, our RERA and homebuyer disputes practice handles the claim, the correction and the tribunal application, and the corporate and commercial practice acts on the committee side. The Ask Me answer on what happens when the builder goes bankrupt is the short version of this page.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.

Related Guides

Our RERA and homebuyer disputes practice and our corporate and commercial practice act for allottees, associations and creditors in builder insolvencies in Bengaluru.

• Form CA: How a Homebuyer Files a Claim When the Builder Is in NCLT
• Builder in Insolvency? Homebuyer Rights After the Supreme Court's Mantri Ruling (2026)
• Can a Homebuyer's NCLT Plea Halt Your Project?