Refund and withdrawal: what Section 18 actually entitles you to.

Does RERA guarantee a refund if I cancel a flat booking?

No — not for a change of mind. The refund right people mean when they say “RERA refund” is Section 18 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, and it is triggered by something the promoter does or fails to do, not by something you decide. If you simply want out, the document that decides what you get back is your own registered agreement for sale and the cancellation clause inside it.

That distinction is the whole page. Buyers who assume the statute covers a voluntary exit are surprised at the deduction; buyers who assume the agreement overrides the statute are surprised the other way. Both instruments apply, to different situations, and it is worth knowing which one you are standing on before you write to anybody.

What does Section 18 actually say?

Section 18(1) applies where a promoter fails to complete or is unable to give possession of an apartment either in accordance with the terms of the agreement for sale or by the date specified in it, or because the business has been discontinued on suspension or revocation of the registration. In that case the promoter is liable, on demand, to an allottee who wishes to withdraw from the project, to return the amount received in respect of that apartment with interest at the prescribed rate, including compensation, and without prejudice to any other remedy.

The proviso is the part most summaries leave out, and it is the more commonly used half: an allottee who does not intend to withdraw is to be paid interest for every month of delay, until possession is handed over. Withdrawing is a choice, not an obligation, and it is the allottee’s choice rather than the promoter’s.

Two further limbs sit under the same section. Section 18(2) makes a promoter liable to compensate an allottee for loss caused by a defective title to the land, and says such a claim is not barred by limitation. Section 18(3) covers failure to discharge any other obligation under the Act, the rules, or the terms of the agreement for sale. Section 19(4) states the same refund entitlement from the allottee’s side of the Act.

There is also a separate route at Section 12: where a person makes a payment relying on information in an advertisement or prospectus that turns out to be incorrect, and sustains a loss, the Act allows a return of the investment with interest if that person wishes to withdraw. Which section fits a given situation is a legal question, and worth asking a lawyer rather than a sales desk.

What rate of interest applies to a refund under Section 18?

The Act does not fix a number. It says “at such rate as may be prescribed”, and the prescription is made by the rules of the state. That single sentence is why the figure you find on most pages should be treated with care.

We publish no figure, because we could not verify one. The rate that binds a project in Uttar Pradesh is whatever the Uttar Pradesh rules made under the Act prescribe, applied to the benchmark as it stands on the relevant date — and the copy of those rules published on the authority’s own site, as we read it on 2 September 2026, does not carry a legible rate formula against the rule headed “Rate of interest payable by the promoter and the allottee”. A percentage copied from a secondary page and then quoted back in a demand letter is a weak place to argue from.

One deadline the same rules do state plainly, in the rule immediately after the interest one: any refund of monies, with the applicable interest and compensation, is payable by the promoter to the allottee within forty-five days of the date on which it becomes due.

What to do instead, and it takes one reading: get the current prescribed rate from the text of the state rules or from an order of the authority itself, and note the benchmark date it is applied on. Then the figure in your letter has a source behind it.

If I simply change my mind, what governs the refund?

Your registered agreement for sale. Section 13(2) of the Act requires that agreement to specify, among other things, the dates and manner of payment, the date on which possession is to be handed over, and the rates of interest payable by the promoter to the allottee and by the allottee to the promoter in case of default. A cancellation clause sits alongside those, and it is the clause that decides what is retained and what comes back.

Three practical moves, all of them before you sign rather than after:

1. Ask for the cancellation clause by number, in writing. Not a description of it — the clause number and its text, in an email you keep.
2. Ask what is deducted and on what base. A retention expressed as a percentage of the basic price and a retention expressed as a percentage of the agreement value are different amounts. Ask which base the clause uses.
3. Ask how long payment takes and through which channel. A refund normally returns down the same banking channel the money arrived on, so the account that funded the payment is the account to keep open.

The charge heads that can appear in a settlement — the retention itself, taxes already remitted, and any brokerage paid to an intermediary — can and should be named on the letter you are given. Our desk charges buyers nothing, so no buyer-side brokerage of ours can ever be deducted from anybody’s refund. The rupee figures against your own unit come from the promoter in writing; ask us and we will put the request in for you.

Who actually owes the refund on these two projects?

The promoter entity on the register, and the two projects on this site are registered to two different companies. Eldeco La Vida Bella at Plot GH-02C, Sector 12, Greater Noida West is registered under UPRERAPRJ136219/04/2024 to ELDECO REAL ESTATE LIMITED, entered on the register on 26-04-2024. Eldeco 7 Peaks Residences at Sector Omicron 1A, Greater Noida is registered under UPRERAPRJ106523/01/2026 to ELDECO HOMES DEVELOPERS LIMITED, entered on 28-01-2026. Those readings stand as at our desk's UP-RERA portal check of 21 August 2026, corroborated by our register mirror read of 29 July 2026. The 7 Peaks filing is transcribed field by field, documents included, on the Eldeco 7 Peaks Residences RERA record page.

Why it matters for a refund specifically: a demand letter, a complaint and a bank instruction all have to name the right company. Addressing a claim to the group brand, or to the company that holds the other project, is the kind of avoidable error that costs weeks. Read the entity name off the register and off your own agreement, and use exactly that.

The money route is the same discipline in the other direction. Instalments for La Vida Bella are received into the project’s RERA-designated collection account in the name of Eldeco Real Estate Limited at HDFC Bank Limited — the account name, number and IFSC are set out on our payment-plan page and should be matched against your own agreement and demand letter before any transfer. Payments never pass through this desk at any stage, and no payment is ever requested online.

Where does a disputed refund get decided?

A complaint under Section 31 of the Act may be filed with the Uttar Pradesh Real Estate Regulatory Authority, or with the adjudicating officer, by any aggrieved person for a contravention of the Act or the rules made under it. Filing is done on the authority’s own portal at up-rera.in; a claim for compensation is dealt with by the adjudicating officer under Section 71. An appeal from the authority lies to the Appellate Tribunal.

Before that stage, the ordinary sequence is a written request to the promoter, a reminder, and then the complaint. Each of those is stronger if the paperwork behind it is already assembled, which is what the next section is for.

What should you have on file before asking for anything?

None of this is exotic; it is simply the set of documents that make a request answerable rather than arguable.

Ask for anything you do not hold. Section 19 of the Act gives an allottee the right to obtain information relating to the project, and a request for copies of your own documents is not an unusual one. For 7 Peaks, the charge heads a dated cost sheet should separate are already named, one by one, on the Eldeco 7 Peaks price list page.

Questions buyers ask

By Vidit Kaushik, Vidastu Advisory (UP-RERA Agent UPRERAAGT000309/01/2026) · Published 2 September 2026 · This page states the statutory position and a checking method. It is not legal advice, and it makes no adverse claim about any promoter.