# Society redevelopment: member rights and the consent threshold

**TL;DR:** A co-operative housing society's general body, not any individual member, decides whether to redevelop, and Section 79A of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act 1960 lets the state government issue directives on how that decision must be reached. Courts have repeatedly held the 2009 directive to be recommendatory rather than binding, and members should not rely on any specific consent percentage without checking the current directive text against their society's own resolution.

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## On this page

- [Who actually decides to redevelop](#who-actually-decides-to-redevelop)
- [Section 79A and the government's power to issue directives](#section-79a-and-the-governments-power-to-issue-directives)
- [The consent threshold: why the number you have heard may be wrong](#the-consent-threshold-why-the-number-you-have-heard-may-be-wrong)
- [What the redevelopment agreement must contain](#what-the-redevelopment-agreement-must-contain)
- [The corpus payment](#the-corpus-payment)
- [Alternate accommodation and transit rent](#alternate-accommodation-and-transit-rent)
- [Carpet area entitlement and fungible FSI](#carpet-area-entitlement-and-fungible-fsi)
- [Appointing the project management consultant and architect](#appointing-the-project-management-consultant-and-architect)
- [The redevelopment procedure end to end](#the-redevelopment-procedure-end-to-end)
- [The dissenting minority member](#the-dissenting-minority-member)
- [When the developer stops paying transit rent or abandons the site](#when-the-developer-stops-paying-transit-rent-or-abandons-the-site)
- [Where the law is Maharashtra-specific and where it is not](#where-the-law-is-maharashtra-specific-and-where-it-is-not)
- [Frequently asked questions](#frequently-asked-questions)

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## Who actually decides to redevelop

A co-operative housing society in Maharashtra is a body corporate registered under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act 1960 (MCS Act). Individual flat owners are members of that society, and their rights over the building are exercised collectively through the general body, not individually over the common structure. Section 72 of the MCS Act fixes where that collective authority sits. In *M/S Maya Developers v. Neelam R. Thakkar and Ors.*, the Bombay High Court recorded that "the final authority of every society vests in the general body of its members in a general meeting summoned in the prescribed manner" (Bombay High Court, judgment dated 13 July 2016, [indiankanoon.org/doc/191896994](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/191896994/)).

That fact explains almost everything that follows. A member who owns a flat on the third floor does not have a personal veto over whether the building gets redeveloped, because the member's ownership interest sits inside a share in the society, and the society's decisions are made by the general body voting as a collective. The managing committee proposes; it does not decide alone. A redevelopment resolution has to go to a special general body meeting called for that purpose, and the resolution passed there binds the society, the committee, and every member, whether or not that member voted for it.

This is also why the Bombay High Court, in *Pranav Constructions Limited v. Priyadarshini Co-operative Housing Society Limited*, held that an individual member's proprietary rights "would be subservient to the authority of the General Body of the Society" (Bombay High Court, judgment dated 14 July 2025, citation 2025:BHC-OS:10901-DB, [indiankanoon.org/doc/183552655](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/183552655/)). A member unhappy with redevelopment is not without remedy, but the remedy runs through challenging the resolution or the process behind it, not through simply refusing to comply once the general body has spoken.

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## Section 79A and the government's power to issue directives

Section 72 tells you who decides. Section 79A tells you what the state government can do if it thinks that decision-making process is being abused. The section reads, as reproduced in the Maya Developers judgment cited above:

"If the State Government, on receipt of a report from the Registrar or otherwise, is satisfied that in the public interest or for the purposes of securing proper implementation of co-operative production and other development programmes approved or undertaken by Government, or to secure the proper management of the business of the society generally, or for preventing the affairs of the society being conducted in a manner detrimental to the interests of the members, or of the depositors or the creditors thereof, it is necessary to issue directions to any class of societies generally or to any society or societies in particular, the State Government may issue directions to them from time to time, and all societies or the societies concerned, as the case may be, shall be bound to comply with such directions."

The government has used this power to issue redevelopment directives more than once, aimed at problems it identified in the sector: societies signing development agreements without transparent tendering, committees not taking members into confidence, and members finding out about a deal's terms only after it was signed. A Government Resolution dated 3 January 2009 was one such directive, and a further direction dated 4 July 2019, issued under the same section, addressed transparency requirements (referenced in *Pranav Constructions Limited v. Priyadarshini Co-operative Housing Society Limited*, cited above).

What matters for a flat owner is the legal weight these directives carry, and that has been the subject of repeated litigation with a consistent answer. In the Maya Developers case, the Bombay High Court examined the 2009 directive clause by clause and concluded that "the whole of the 2009 Directive is recommendatory, not obligatory," noting that its clauses use "should" rather than "shall" or "must". The court pointed to the clause on the redevelopment agreement, which "in terms says that the Development Agreement 'should' contain some conditions...specifically subject to the terms and conditions approved by the General Body Meeting."

Eight years later, the same principle was reaffirmed. In *Shubham Builders v. Kanchan Villa Co-operative Society Ltd.*, the Bombay High Court held that "the directives issued under Section 79A of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, will not overrule the decision of the majority of the members and it is time and again held that the directives issued under Section 79A of the Act, are merely directory in nature and do not enjoy a binding force" (Bombay High Court, Commercial Division, judgment dated 4 April 2024, citation 2024:BHC-OS:6074, [indiankanoon.org/doc/2839798](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/2839798/)). The court applied a doctrine of substantial compliance: if the general body's decision was reached with real transparency and majority support, small departures from the directive's recommended procedure will not by themselves invalidate the redevelopment.

For a member, this cuts both ways. A developer or committee cannot be forced to follow every recommended step in the directive to the letter, because the directive is guidance, not a statute. A member also cannot assume that a departure from the directive automatically voids the process. What a court looks at instead is whether the general body's decision was genuinely informed and majority-backed, which is why the notice, the disclosure of terms, the minutes, and the actual vote count carry more weight in a dispute than the directive's clause numbers.

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## The consent threshold: why the number you have heard may be wrong

This is the question every member asks first, and it is the fact this article treats with the most caution. Two figures circulate in general commentary on Maharashtra redevelopment, 70 percent and 51 percent, and they come from different documents issued in different years. Getting this wrong in print is worse than saying nothing, so here is exactly what can be verified and exactly what cannot.

The consent threshold for redevelopment is fixed by directive issued under Section 79A, not by the bare text of the MCS Act itself. That structure matters: it means the applicable percentage can change when the government issues a new directive, and any number printed in an article, including this one, can go stale. A member should always confirm the currently applicable directive with the Registrar of Co-operative Societies or a lawyer before relying on a specific figure for a live redevelopment.

With that caveat stated, here is what a fetched judgment actually shows. In the Shubham Builders case cited above, the meeting minutes placed before the Bombay High Court recorded that "as per the new redevelopment guidelines issued on 04-07-2019, amongst other prerequisites and conditions, having a majority of at least 51 percent of the total members of the society giving consent to a developer is sufficient" (Bombay High Court, 4 April 2024, [indiankanoon.org/doc/2839798](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/2839798/), para 9). That is a quote of the society's own minutes as recorded in the judgment, not the court's independent construction of the 4 July 2019 directive, and the judgment does not reproduce the directive's full text. Treat it as evidence of a 51 percent figure in that recorded instance, not as a definitive restatement of current law.

In practice, societies frequently secure consent well above any statutory floor, because a resolution passed by a thin majority invites the kind of litigation this section is warning about. In the Maya Developers case, approval came from a general body meeting where 26 of 30 votes cast were in favour, about 90 percent of the membership. In *Vikram Delite Co-operative Housing Society Ltd. v. Meenakshi Chandrakant Shah and Ors.*, the resolution had the support of 62 of 66 members, close to 94 percent (Bombay High Court, 28 July 2017, Suit (L) No. 413 of 2016, [indiankanoon.org/doc/103519504](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/103519504/)). In Pranav Constructions, the court recorded approval by "more than three-fourths majority of members." None of these figures is the statutory floor; each is the level of support the society chose to secure, well above whatever minimum applied.

The practical takeaway for a member facing a redevelopment vote: do not judge legitimacy by whether the resolution cleared some remembered percentage. Check instead whether the meeting was properly noticed, whether terms were disclosed before the vote and not after, whether the vote count is recorded in the minutes, and whether the current Section 79A directive was substantially followed. A [good-law check](/blog/good-law-checking) on the directive and the leading authorities is worth the ten minutes it takes, because directives under this section have been superseded before and can be again. Treating a directive as if it carried the same weight as [primary legislation](/blog/primary-vs-secondary-legal-sources) is a common error here, since a directive can be departed from in ways the Act itself cannot.

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## What the redevelopment agreement must contain

The redevelopment agreement, usually called the Development Agreement, is the contract between the society and the developer, and it is the document that actually creates the developer's enforceable obligations. It is typically accompanied by a power of attorney authorising the developer or its representatives to deal with municipal and other authorities on the society's behalf; drafting or vetting that [power of attorney](/blog/power-of-attorney-india) is one of the more consequential steps in the whole process, because a poorly scoped authorisation can let a developer act well beyond what the general body actually approved.

Based on the terms disputed across the Bombay High Court redevelopment cases cited in this article, a Development Agreement in practice covers the developer's construction timeline, the corpus payment, transit rent or alternate accommodation, hardship or shifting compensation, the carpet area each member receives on completion, the treatment of fungible or incentive FSI, delay penalties, and the developer's obligation to obtain statutory approvals including the commencement and occupation certificates. The 2009 directive, though recommendatory rather than binding, recommended that these terms be disclosed to and approved by the general body before signature rather than presented as a fait accompli afterward, and courts have treated that disclosure as good evidence of a properly conducted process while declining to treat it as mandatory in every particular.

Because the agreement is negotiated against a developer who has more experience with these transactions than most managing committees, societies increasingly engage a lawyer to draft or review the agreement clause by clause rather than accept a template the developer proposes, executing a [vakalatnama](/blog/vakalatnama) if the matter is likely to reach a forum. A [legal notice](/blog/how-to-draft-legal-notice) is also the standard first step once a society believes the developer has breached a specific clause of the agreement, before matters escalate to a dispute under Section 91 or a [civil suit under the CPC](/blog/cpc-civil-procedure-basics). A developer served with such a notice is expected to [reply within the period stated](/blog/reply-to-legal-notice-india), and silence beyond that window strengthens the society's position if the dispute is later litigated.

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## The corpus payment

The corpus is a lump sum, or sometimes a series of instalments, that the developer pays to the society or directly to individual members as consideration distinct from the additional flat area each member receives. In the disputes examined for this article, corpus and related one-time payments were treated as separate contractual line items from the transit rent paid during construction and the hardship compensation paid on account of displacement. The Shubham Builders case, for instance, recorded a hardship compensation of Rs 1,451 per square foot as a one-time payment under the 2014 Development Agreement, alongside a separate monthly transit rent figure and a one-time shifting charge of Rs 15,000.

There is no fixed statutory formula for the corpus amount under the MCS Act or under Section 79A directives; it is a matter of negotiation, usually informed by the market value of the additional saleable area the project will generate. Where the Act and directives are silent on quantum, they are not silent on process: the corpus figure, like every other term of the Development Agreement, should be disclosed to and approved by the general body before the agreement is executed.

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## Alternate accommodation and transit rent

Once members vacate their existing flats to allow demolition and construction, the developer's obligation is either to provide alternate accommodation directly or, far more commonly in practice, to pay a monthly transit rent that lets the member arrange their own accommodation for the construction period. The amount and duration of this payment is a negotiated term of the Development Agreement, not a fixed statutory rate. Members redeveloping under this route are not "allottees" the way a buyer purchasing a flat from a builder is, so the possession-delay remedies discussed in coverage of the [RERA Act for homebuyers](/blog/rera-act-homebuyers) do not transplant directly here; the equivalent protection for a redevelopment member is the transit rent clause itself and the termination remedy discussed below.

A developer defaulting on this specific obligation is the single most litigated post-agreement failure in Maharashtra redevelopment disputes, covered in detail below. In the Supreme Court's most recent word on the subject, a society's ability to terminate a Development Agreement for non-payment of transit rent over an extended period was upheld even against a developer's attempt to use insolvency proceedings to block the termination (*A A Estates Private Limited v. Kher Nagar Sukhsadan Co-operative Housing Society Ltd.*, Supreme Court of India, 28 November 2025, citation 2025 INSC 1366, [indiankanoon.org/doc/192135885](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/192135885/)).

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## Carpet area entitlement and fungible FSI

The carpet area a member receives in the redeveloped building is one of the two commercial terms, alongside the corpus, that members negotiate most closely, and it is where the developer's profit margin and the member's benefit are most directly in tension. In the Maya Developers case, the agreed terms gave members in 220 square foot flats a redeveloped unit of 485 square feet, an increase of about 45.36 percent, while members in 320 square foot flats received about 620 square feet, an increase of 51.61 percent. These figures were the product of specific negotiation for that building and should not be read as any kind of standard entitlement; every redevelopment negotiates its own carpet area uplift based on the plot's development potential.

Fungible FSI, sometimes called incentive FSI, is additional floor space index the developer earns under Maharashtra's development control regulations by paying a premium to the local planning authority, calculated as a percentage of the base FSI without counting toward the building's chargeable built-up area for certain purposes. In the Development Agreement disputed in the Maya Developers case, fungible FSI was to be used in the redevelopment, with an additional 2,000 square feet allocated to the society over and above individual member entitlements. How fungible FSI is divided between additional area for existing members, additional saleable flats for the developer, and amenity space for the society is a negotiated term of each agreement rather than a fixed statutory split, and a member evaluating a proposal should ask specifically how that division is structured, since it is often where the largest undisclosed value sits. Once the new building is complete, the society still needs its own [property title verified against encumbrance and mutation records](/blog/property-title-verification-encumbrance-mutation-checklist) before executing a fresh conveyance in favour of the redeveloped structure.

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## Appointing the project management consultant and architect

Before a developer is even selected, a well-run redevelopment appoints a Project Management Consultant, commonly called the PMC, and an architect to assess the building's feasibility, prepare a scheme, and structure the tender process by which developers compete for the project. In the Maya Developers case, the society appointed its PMC and architect on 15 April 2011, well before signing the Development Agreement, which followed only after a general body meeting approved the negotiated terms in February 2012.

The tendering step is where the 2009 and 2019 directives place the heaviest emphasis, because the complaint the government identified in issuing those directives was the absence of a transparent, competitive process for selecting a developer. A society that appoints a developer without inviting competing offers, or that changes material terms after the tender closes without returning to the general body, is the fact pattern most likely to produce a successful challenge from a dissenting member later, even under the substantial-compliance standard the Bombay High Court has applied. The PMC's role is to structure that tender, evaluate offers on comparable terms including carpet area, corpus, and timeline, and present a recommendation to the general body, since it is the general body, not the managing committee alone, that must approve the selected developer.

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## The redevelopment procedure end to end

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    A[Managing committee proposes redevelopment] --> B[Structural audit confirms need]
    B --> C[PMC and architect appointed after tender]
    C --> D[Feasibility report prepared]
    D --> E[Special general body meeting called]
    E --> F[Developer tender invited and evaluated]
    F --> G[General body resolution selects developer]
    G --> H[Development agreement and power of attorney executed]
    H --> I[Members vacate, transit rent begins]
    I --> J[Demolition, municipal approvals, construction]
    J --> K[Occupation certificate issued]
    K --> L[Possession handed back to members]
    L --> M[Conveyance and new building registered to society]
```

---

## The dissenting minority member

A member who votes against redevelopment, or who was outvoted and now refuses to vacate, is in a genuinely difficult position once the resolution has been validly passed. The Bombay High Court addressed this in the Vikram Delite case, where four members out of sixty-six objected to a redevelopment approved by the remaining sixty-two. The court granted a mandatory injunction requiring the dissenting members to vacate, holding that a "miniscule minority" cannot stall a redevelopment properly approved by an overwhelming majority in a transparent process, and treating procedural objections about the directive's guidelines as unavailable as a defence once that majority approval was established.

This does not mean a dissenting member has no options. The options run through challenging the process, not through refusing to comply once the process has produced a valid resolution. A member who believes the meeting was improperly noticed, that material terms were concealed before the vote, that the tender was not genuinely competitive, or that the resolution was procured by some other irregularity, can raise a dispute under Section 91 of the MCS Act before the Cooperative Court, which has jurisdiction over "any dispute touching the constitution, elections of the committee or its officers, conduct of general meetings, management or business of a society" ([indiankanoon.org/doc/10819484](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/10819484/)). That is markedly narrower than simply disagreeing with redevelopment as a policy. In *Mr. Madhukar Jagannath Sathe and Anr. v. State of Maharashtra and Anr.*, members did exactly this, filing "a dispute under section 91 of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act, 1960 in relation to resolution passed by the general body as regards redevelopment" before the Cooperative Court (Bombay High Court, 27 February 2024, citation 2024:BHC-AS:9985, [indiankanoon.org/doc/100890666](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/100890666/)).

A member weighing a Section 91 challenge should be realistic about the burden, given that the Bombay High Court treats the 2009 and 2019 directives as directory rather than mandatory. A challenge built purely on a skipped recommended step is likely to fail if the general body's decision was otherwise transparent and backed by a real majority. A challenge built on concealment of material terms, an improperly conducted vote, or a tender that was not genuinely open to competition stands on stronger ground, since those are facts courts have actually treated as going to validity rather than mere procedural preference. A member who delays too long before filing may also have to explain that delay, and the general principles governing [condonation of delay](/blog/condonation-of-delay) apply here as to any other time-barred filing.

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## When the developer stops paying transit rent or abandons the site

This is the second most common dispute after the consent question, and the Supreme Court gave it a definitive answer in November 2025. In *A A Estates Private Limited v. Kher Nagar Sukhsadan Co-operative Housing Society Ltd.*, a developer had executed a Development Agreement in 2005 to redevelop a dilapidated building housing sixty low-income residents in Bandra, Mumbai, undertaking to pay each member Rs 35,000 a month in transit rent for twenty-four months and Rs 35 lakh per member in hardship compensation. Of the sixty members, only nineteen ever received rent payments; the remaining forty-one received nothing. The developer obtained its approvals between 2012 and 2014 but never began demolition, and the building stayed uninhabitable for close to two decades.

The society issued repeated notices, then passed a resolution on 9 June 2019 terminating the Development Agreement, formally notified the developer on 2 December 2019 and again on 6 November 2021, and appointed a new developer on 7 November 2021. The original developer then entered corporate insolvency resolution in December 2022 and argued that the moratorium under Section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 protected its terminated development rights as an asset of the corporate debtor, which would have frozen the society's ability to proceed with the replacement developer.

The Supreme Court rejected that argument on two grounds. First, the termination was valid, since the developer's persistent default in transit rent, failure to secure vacant possession, and abandonment of construction over nearly two decades amounted to a material breach, and both the default and the termination predated the insolvency filing. Second, the Development Agreement did not constitute an "asset" of the developer within the meaning of Section 14 of the IBC at all, because the developer had never taken possession of the property and the society had retained legal and physical possession throughout. The Court drew on *Sushil Kumar Agarwal v. Meenakshi Sadhu* (2019) 2 SCC 241 for the principle that "when a pure construction contract is entered into, the contractor has no interest in either the land or the construction which is carried out," and described the developer's insolvency argument as "a misconceived attempt to shield inaction under the guise of moratorium protection."

For a society in this position today, the practical sequence the Kher Nagar case validates is: document every default in writing, issue a formal termination once the breach is serious and sustained rather than a single missed payment, and only then appoint a replacement developer through a fresh resolution. A society that jumps straight to a new developer without a documented, resolved termination invites the kind of "which agreement governs" dispute that took Kher Nagar's society most of a decade to resolve. Disputes about the termination's validity are contractual disputes over a registered instrument, generally litigated in civil court or before an arbitrator if the agreement has an arbitration clause; the developer in Kher Nagar invoked arbitration only belatedly, after the society had already moved to a replacement developer, and that timing worked against it. Where a statutory authority's own duty to process approvals is in issue, the correct route is one of the [five writs](/blog/five-writs-explained), specifically a [writ petition](/blog/how-to-file-writ-petition) invoking [Article 226 rather than Article 227](/blog/article-226-vs-227) jurisdiction, since Article 226 reaches public-law failures in a way Article 227's supervisory jurisdiction does not. Not every default needs litigation; a society and developer with an otherwise workable relationship sometimes resolve a payment dispute faster through the [Mediation Act 2023](/blog/mediation-act-2023) or a [Lok Adalat](/blog/lok-adalat-explained) for smaller claims.

Before filing anything, a society or member should confirm that the authorities being relied on are still good law rather than assuming a five or ten year old judgment still reflects current practice. [Niyam's citator](https://niyam.ai) flags whether any of the cases discussed in this article have since been overruled or distinguished, a narrower and more mechanical check than legal research generally, and one worth running before filing rather than after.

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## Where the law is Maharashtra-specific and where it is not

Everything in this article about Section 79A, the 2009 and 2019 directives, and the Cooperative Court under Section 91 is specific to Maharashtra's own statute. Other states run their own co-operative societies acts, several with their own general body and consent provisions, and a member outside Maharashtra should not assume any figure or forum discussed here applies without checking the equivalent provisions in their own state's act.

The principle that does travel across states is the underlying structure: a co-operative housing society, wherever it is registered, is a body corporate whose collective decisions are made by its general body, and an individual member's ownership interest in a flat does not translate into a personal veto over decisions the general body is empowered to make. A member's remedy against an improperly conducted process typically runs through whatever cooperative dispute forum that state's own act establishes, not through a unilateral refusal to comply once a validly passed resolution exists. The specific consent percentages, directive dates, and forum names in this article do not carry over; readers outside Maharashtra should treat this as a case study in how one state's framework operates, not as a statement of their own state's law.

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## Comparing a compliant and a defective redevelopment process

<div style={{overflowX: "auto"}}>

| Step in the process | Compliant | Defective |
|---|---|---|
| General body meeting notice | ✓ Sent in advance with agenda disclosing redevelopment as a specific item | ✗ Redevelopment introduced as "any other business" without prior notice |
| Developer selection | ✓ Selected through a tender the PMC evaluated on comparable terms | ✗ Selected without a competing offer being invited |
| Terms disclosed before vote | ✓ Corpus, carpet area, and transit rent figures circulated before the meeting | ✗ Members asked to approve "in principle" before terms are finalised |
| Vote count | ✓ Recorded in minutes with the actual tally | ✗ Approval recorded as "unanimous" without a documented count |
| Consent threshold | ✓ Checked against the currently applicable Section 79A directive | not specified in the Act, must be verified against the current directive |
| Termination for developer default | ✓ Preceded by documented notices and a formal general body resolution | ✗ Society moves to a new developer without terminating the first agreement |
| Dissenting member's remedy | ✓ Section 91 dispute raising a specific procedural irregularity | ✗ Refusal to vacate without any legal challenge to the resolution |

</div>

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## Frequently asked questions

### What percentage of members must consent to redevelopment in a Maharashtra housing society?

The consent threshold is fixed by directive issued under Section 79A of the MCS Act, and directives have been revised over time, so a fixed number cannot be stated reliably without checking the currently applicable directive against the Registrar of Co-operative Societies. A Bombay High Court judgment dated 4 April 2024 recorded meeting minutes referencing a 51 percent threshold under a directive dated 4 July 2019, but this should be independently verified before relying on it for any live redevelopment.

### Can a single member block a redevelopment the majority has approved?

No. Once a general body resolution approving redevelopment is validly passed, an individual member's proprietary interest is subservient to the general body's authority, and the Bombay High Court has granted mandatory injunctions compelling dissenting members to vacate. The member's remedy is to challenge the validity of the resolution or process, not to simply refuse compliance.

### Is the 2009 Section 79A directive legally binding on a society?

No. The Bombay High Court has held more than once, including in 2016 and again in 2024, that directives issued under Section 79A are recommendatory or directory rather than mandatory, and that substantial compliance with a transparent, majority-backed process is what a court will actually examine.

### What happens if the developer stops paying transit rent during construction?

Persistent non-payment of transit rent is a material breach that can justify termination of the Development Agreement, as the Supreme Court confirmed in the November 2025 Kher Nagar judgment. The society should document each default in writing, issue formal notices, and pass a resolution terminating the agreement before appointing a replacement developer.

### Which forum hears a dispute between a member and the society over a redevelopment resolution?

A dispute touching the conduct of a general meeting or the management of the society's business goes to the Cooperative Court under Section 91 of the MCS Act. Disputes over the validity or breach of the Development Agreement itself, as a contract, are generally litigated as an ordinary [civil suit under the CPC](/blog/cpc-civil-procedure-basics) or before an arbitrator if the agreement contains an arbitration clause.

### Can a developer use insolvency proceedings to block a society from appointing a new developer after termination?

The Supreme Court rejected this in the Kher Nagar case, holding that a terminated Development Agreement is not an "asset" of the corporate debtor under Section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code where the developer never took possession of the property and the society retained possession throughout.

### What is the corpus payment in a redevelopment agreement?

The corpus is a lump sum or instalment payment the developer makes to the society or its members as consideration separate from the additional carpet area provided, typically negotiated based on the market value of the additional saleable area the project will generate. There is no fixed statutory formula for its amount.

### What is fungible FSI and how does it affect a member's flat area?

Fungible FSI, also called incentive FSI, is additional floor space a developer earns under Maharashtra's development control regulations by paying a premium to the planning authority. How it is divided between additional member area, developer saleable area, and society amenity space is negotiated in each Development Agreement rather than fixed by statute.

### Does a society need to appoint a project management consultant before selecting a developer?

There is no statutory requirement to appoint a PMC, but the practice is standard in Maharashtra redevelopment because the Section 79A directives place emphasis on a transparent, competitive tender, and a PMC together with an architect is what structures that tender and presents comparable offers to the general body for approval.

### Can a redevelopment agreement be signed before the general body approves the terms?

Courts have treated general body approval of the agreement's actual terms, not merely approval of the decision to redevelop in principle, as the marker of a properly conducted process. An agreement whose material terms are finalised only after members have already voted "in principle" is the pattern most likely to be successfully challenged.

### What is transit rent and how is it different from the corpus?

Transit rent is a periodic payment made during the construction period to help a displaced member arrange alternate accommodation, while the corpus is a separate lump sum consideration distinct from the additional flat area provided. Both are negotiated terms of the Development Agreement rather than fixed by statute.

### Can a member sell their flat in the middle of an ongoing redevelopment?

The Act and directives do not specifically address mid-redevelopment transfers, and this is not specified in the Act; a member considering this should have the transferability of entitlements, including corpus and transit rent obligations, addressed expressly in the sale documentation and checked against the Development Agreement's terms.

### Is MahaRERA registration required for a redevelopment project?

This is not addressed with sufficient certainty in the judgments examined for this article and should be confirmed separately for each project rather than assumed one way or the other.

### What should a member check before voting on a redevelopment resolution?

Whether the meeting notice disclosed redevelopment as a specific agenda item in advance, whether the corpus, carpet area, and transit rent figures were circulated before the vote rather than after, whether the developer was selected through a competitive tender, and whether the vote count itself is recorded in the minutes.

### Can the managing committee approve a redevelopment agreement without a general body vote?

No. Final authority under Section 72 of the MCS Act vests in the general body, and the managing committee's role is to propose and administer, not to make the final decision on a Development Agreement in the general body's place.

### How long does the redevelopment process typically take from resolution to possession?

This varies by project size, municipal approval timelines, and the completion period negotiated in the Development Agreement; the cases examined here show completion periods of roughly two and a half to three years from the start of construction, with additional grace periods, but no fixed statutory timeline governs the process end to end.

### What recourse does a society have if a member refuses to vacate after a valid redevelopment resolution?

The society can seek a mandatory injunction from the civil court directing the member to vacate, as was granted in the Vikram Delite case where four dissenting members out of sixty-six were ordered to hand over possession to allow redevelopment to proceed. A member who defies that injunction faces [contempt proceedings](/blog/how-to-file-contempt-petition), not merely a repeat of the original suit.

---

Building the evidence trail behind these disputes, tracing which Bombay High Court redevelopment authorities remain good law, and cross-checking a directive against the judgments construing it, is research most societies are not equipped to do on their own before signing a Development Agreement. [Niyam.ai](https://niyam.ai) lets a lawyer search across Bombay High Court and Supreme Court judgments by fact pattern rather than exact keyword, which matters here because so few of these disputes cite each other directly even when they turn on the same Section 79A question. A member preparing a Section 91 dispute can use the same [case status tracking](/blog/check-case-status-ecourts-njdg) tools any litigant would once a dispute is filed.