Questions to Ask a Sales Team, and the Answers to Get in Writing

A question that can be answered with an adjective is a wasted question. "Is the project legally clear?" invites the word yes, costs the person nothing, and leaves you holding exactly what you arrived with. "Which authority sanctioned the plans, and what is the approval reference?" has one correct answer, that answer exists on a document, and either it arrives or it does not.

What follows is twenty questions of the second kind, grouped by the stage of the conversation at which each becomes relevant. They are drawn partly from what our own sales gallery is actually asked and partly from what buyers rarely ask and should. Every one is phrased so that a legitimate answer is a document, a section, a number or a named authority.

Registration and approvals: five questions

1. Which legal entity is the registered promoter for this project, and may I have a copy of the registration certificate? The answer is a name and a PDF. Compare that name to the brand on the hoarding; they often differ, which is ordinary, and to the entity that will sign your agreement, which must not.
2. Which survey numbers does the registration cover, and is my tower on one of them? Certificates carry the land, in a named village. On a site being built in parts, this is the question that establishes whether the part you are buying is inside a registration at all.
3. Which authority sanctioned the plans, and what is the approval reference? Jurisdiction on the outskirts of a city varies parcel by parcel, and the answer tells you which office holds the drawings.
4. Is any part of the site not covered by this registration? A direct question with a one-word answer, and the follow-up if the answer is yes is which parts, and what is being done about them.
5. What completion timeline was declared to the authority for this project? A promoter declares one under section 4(2)(l)(C) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 when registering. It is on the record; ask for it rather than for an estimate.

Area, configuration and what is included: four questions

6. What is the carpet area of this exact unit, as it will be written into the agreement for sale? Section 2(k) of the Act defines carpet area, and it is the only one of the three area measures with a statutory definition. Ask for the number for your unit, not for the configuration.
7. Is the balcony inside or outside that figure? Under the section 2(k) definition an exclusive balcony sits outside carpet area. This is the most common source of two different numbers for one home.
8. Which area is the quoted rate calculated against? A per-square-foot figure is meaningless until you know its denominator, and two projects quoting against different denominators cannot be compared at all.
9. What is included in the quoted figure, and what is charged separately? Ask for the full list in writing — parking, corpus, maintenance advance, registration and documentation, any club or infrastructure charge. The answer should be an itemised sheet, not a sentence.

Payment, the separate account and what is due when: four questions

10. May I have the payment schedule in writing before I pay anything? The schedule tells you what triggers each instalment — a construction stage, a date, or a milestone that is really a date in disguise.
11. What is due before the agreement for sale is executed and registered? Section 13(1) of the Act bars a promoter from accepting more than ten per cent of the cost of the apartment as an advance or application fee before that written agreement is entered into and registered. Ask the question and compare the answer to the provision.
12. Which bank holds the separate account for this project? Section 4(2)(l)(D) requires seventy per cent of the amounts realised from allottees to be deposited in a separate account in a scheduled bank and withdrawn in proportion to completion, certified by an engineer, an architect and a chartered accountant. You will not audit it. You are checking whether the person selling knows it exists.
13. Which entity do I make payments to, and is it the promoter on the certificate? Where the payee, the promoter and the party to your agreement are not the same legal person, that needs explaining before any money moves.

Specification and what can change: three questions

14. May I have the complete specification list as it will be annexed to the agreement? Not the brochure page. The annexure is what binds.
15. Which items in the sample flat are outside the contracted specification? Honest sales teams answer this readily, because the answer is always "the furniture, and usually some of the fittings", and saying so builds more trust than leaving it ambiguous.
16. Under what circumstances can the specification or the plan change, and how will I be told? Section 14 of the Act governs adherence to sanctioned plans and the limits on alteration; the answer should reference the agreement's own clause, and you should read that clause.

Handover, association and maintenance: four questions

17. What happens at possession, and which certificate will be in place when I take it? The occupancy certificate is defined at section 2(zf) of the Act, and section 11(4)(b) places the duty of obtaining it on the promoter. Taking possession without one shifts a problem onto the buyer.
18. How is maintenance computed, and for how long is it collected in advance? Ask for the basis — per unit area or per unit — and the period. Ask separately what the corpus is and what it may be spent on.
19. When and how does the residents' association take over? Section 11(4)(e) requires the promoter to enable the formation of an association of allottees. Ask for the intended timeline and what is handed over with it.
20. What is covered during the defect liability period, and who do I contact? Section 14(3) of the Act provides for the promoter's liability for structural defects and defects in workmanship, quality or provision of services brought to notice within five years from the date of handing over possession. Ask what the process is, in writing, before you need it.

Which answers to insist on in writing

Not all twenty need to be documented. Insist on writing for the ones you might later need to produce, and let the rest be conversation.

The last row is the whole rule, compressed. If a statement is part of why you are buying, it belongs in the agreement. If it is not, it does not need to be written down at all.

How to ask for it in writing, politely

The framing that works, and that no reasonable sales team objects to: "Could you confirm that by email so I have it on file?" It attributes the need to your own record-keeping rather than to their credibility, it is what a lender or an advocate will ask you for anyway, and it is true.

Send one consolidated email rather than twenty separate ones, number the questions, and keep the numbering in the reply. A single dated thread with numbered items is the most useful artefact you will own from the entire pre-purchase process, and it costs one hour to create.

What a refusal to write tells you

There are three refusals and they mean different things.

"I'll have to check." Usually honest. Follow up once. If a second follow-up dies too, the question has been answered by silence.

"That will all be in the agreement." Sometimes true and sometimes a way of deferring disclosure past the point where you have paid. The counter is simple: ask for the draft agreement now. A developer that will not show a draft agreement before an advance is asking for money ahead of terms.

"We don't provide that." Ask which provision or policy prevents it. Documents like sanctioned plans, specifications and the registration certificate are ones section 19(1) of the Act entitles an allottee to information about, and a blanket refusal is a finding in itself. It does not mean the project is bad. It means you should weight this developer's verbal assurances at zero and rely only on what is in the agreement.

None of these twenty questions is adversarial, and a well-run sales desk has heard all of them. The point is not to catch anybody out. It is to end the process holding documents rather than impressions — and to notice, early and cheaply, when documents are not going to arrive.

The registrations, promoter names and survey numbers a buyer would ask us for are already published on the registrations page, and the order these decisions come in is laid out in the buyer guide.