Odisha Apartment Act 2023: Builder Handover Duties

Last reviewed: 3 September 2026.

Most Odisha flat owners never hear the word declaration until the day they try to get common areas transferred or a society bank account opened, and find the building has no legal instrument behind it. Since 2023 that declaration is a statutory duty on the promoter, with a clock and a penalty attached.

Read the Act as a sequence of dated events, not a list of sections. Here is what should have happened in your building.

Two features of that sequence matter more than owners expect.

The Act reaches backwards. Commencement is deemed on 28 June 2023, four months before the 27 October 2023 gazette, and section 2 sub-section 1 extends the Act to buildings whether constructed before or after the commencement of this Act. An old building is not outside this law. The trigger is also the OC, not possession, so a promoter holding an OC without filing is already inside the clock.

The rescue hatch sits in the same section as the duty. Section 9 sub-section 2 was written because in many Odisha projects the promoter had already walked away. It is the most useful paragraph in the Act for an existing association, and it is rarely cited.

Section 2 draws the boundary wide.

• Freehold land. Covered.
• Leasehold land where the lease is for thirty years or more, including a sub-lease. Covered. A shorter lease is not brought in by that clause, so read your lease term first.
• Buildings constructed before the Act commenced, and buildings converted into apartments. Covered, in terms.
• Non-residential use. Section 2 sub-section 2 covers apartments used or proposed to be used for residence, office, the practice of any profession, any occupation, trade or business, or any other type of independent use. A commercial unit in your tower is inside the Act.
• The whole State. Section 1 sub-section 2 extends the Act to the whole of Odisha, with no district carve out.

1. Submit a declaration. Not a letter, not the minutes of a handover meeting.
2. In respect of the building, whether constructed before or after the Act commenced.
3. Within 30 days of the issue of the Occupancy Certificate. The only period the Act names.
4. In the prescribed form and manner, containing the particulars prescribed by section 9 sub-section 3.

The word prescribed is doing real work: the form, manner and particulars live in rules made under the Act, not in the Act itself. This page quotes no form number and no fee, because we have not verified those rule level details. Get them in writing using the application below.

Section 9 sub-section 1 runs the 30 days from the Occupancy Certificate, while section 2 sub-section 1 brings in buildings constructed before commencement. For a tower whose OC was issued in 2014, that window closed nine years before the Act was deemed to be in force.

The Act prints no substitute date for those buildings and we will not invent one. What it gives you instead is section 9 sub-section 2, so do not spend months arguing about a long expired clock. To get the position in writing first, use the Right to Information Act, 2005; if you have never filed one, start with how to file an RTI in India.

Where apartments have already been handed over to owners before the commencement of the Act, and the promoter is unable to submit the declaration for reasons beyond his control, the Competent Authority shall, after giving an opportunity of hearing to the promoter and to the association of owners, allow the association of allottees to submit the declaration in the prescribed form and manner.

Four points of drafting decide how you frame the application.

• It is triggered by a pre-commencement handover of the apartments to the owners.
• The condition is inability for reasons beyond the promoter's control. Put evidence on record: a dissolved company, an untraceable proprietor, unanswered letters.
• A hearing goes to two parties, the promoter and the association of owners. Expect a notice to the promoter even if you believe he is untraceable.
• The Act then says association of allottees for the body allowed to file. Use its vocabulary and quote the sub-section in full.

Note what this route is not. It is permission to file the declaration, not an order transferring common areas or a corpus or sinking fund, and the Act text we verified attaches no timeline to those transfers. If your real dispute is unaccounted money, the central real estate law and ordinary civil remedies run in parallel.

Every figure is a ceiling, expressed as may extend to, not a fixed fee and not a prediction of what an authority will impose. The daily component is what bites in a long default, because it accrues while letters go ignored.

1. Fix the date the Occupancy Certificate was issued. This is the pivot of the section 9 analysis. Get the OC number and date from the sanctioning authority, by RTI if the promoter will not give it.
2. Check the land title, and if leasehold, the lease term. You need freehold, or a lease of thirty years or more including a sub-lease.
3. Send one written demand to the promoter to file under section 9 sub-section 1, by registered post with acknowledgement due. That letter becomes your proof of refusal.
4. File an RTI for the rules and the prescribed form, and build the inability file alongside it: returned postal covers, records of a struck off company, a closed site office.
5. Apply under section 9 sub-section 2. Quote the sub-section, attach the inability file, name the association of allottees as the proposed filer, ask for the hearing it requires, then file the declaration once permitted. Track your RTI dates with the Timeline Tracker.

• The Occupancy Certificate, with its number and date of issue.
• The sanctioned building plan and approval letter.
• Sale deeds or allotment letters for a sample of flats, with handover dates.
• The land document: freehold title, or the lease deed and sub-lease showing the term in years.
• Registration documents of your association, and every written communication to the promoter with postal receipts.
• Receipts for any corpus, sinking fund or maintenance deposit collected, and proof of the promoter's inability to act.

To
The Public Information Officer
Housing and Urban Development Department
Government of Odisha
[Office address]
Bhubaneswar, Odisha

Subject: Information under Section 6 sub-section 1 of the Right to
Information Act, 2005 regarding the Odisha Apartment Ownership and
Management Act, 2023

Sir/Madam, please provide the following information:

1. A copy of the rules notified under the Odisha Apartment Ownership and
   Management Act, 2023, being ODISHA ACT 8 OF 2023, with the number and
   date of the gazette notification. If no rules have been notified,
   please state so.

2. A copy of the form prescribed for the declaration to be submitted by a
   promoter under Section 9 sub-section 1, and the manner of submission.

3. The designation and office address of the Competent Authority appointed
   under the said Act for [name of district or municipal area].

4. Whether a declaration under Section 9 has been submitted for the project
   known as [project name] at [full address], and if so the date and the
   current status.

5. The number of applications received from associations of allottees under
   Section 9 sub-section 2, year wise, from 28 June 2023 to date, and the
   number allowed and rejected.

6. The number of prosecutions or penalty proceedings launched against
   promoters under the said Act, year wise, from 28 June 2023 to date.

If any part of this request is held by another public authority, please
transfer it under Section 6 sub-section 3 of the RTI Act, 2005 within
five days.

I enclose the prescribed fee. Please supply the information within 30
days as required by Section 7 sub-section 1.

Yours faithfully,
[Name]
[Full postal address on behalf of the association]
[Phone / email]
[Place, Date]

No reply within 30 days is a deemed refusal, and you may file a first appeal under Section 19 sub-section 1. The AI RTI Drafter will format the application, and the RTI Act 2005 page sets out the sections quoted.

• Waiting for the promoter to volunteer. The duty is his, but somebody has to put the file before the Competent Authority.
• Treating an old building as outside the Act. Sections 2 and 9 both cover buildings constructed before commencement.
• Confusing the Competent Authority with the RERA authority. A RERA complaint is a separate track and does not deliver a declaration.
• Applying under section 9 sub-section 2 with no evidence of inability, or skipping the promoter's hearing, which the Act requires as much as notice to the association of owners.
• Guessing the form. Do not copy one circulating on a residents' group chat.

Section 1 sub-section 3 says it shall be deemed to have come into force on the 28th day of June, 2023. It was published later, in the Odisha Gazette Extraordinary No. 2464 at Cuttack on 27 October 2023, under Law Department Notification No. 17564-I-Legis-41/2023/L. The deemed date governs.

Yes. Section 2 sub-section 1 applies the Act to all apartments or buildings converted into apartments, whether constructed before or after commencement, and section 9 sub-section 1 repeats those words. What an old building lacks is a workable deadline, which is why section 9 sub-section 2 exists.

Thirty days from the issue of the Occupancy Certificate, under section 9 sub-section 1. The clock runs from the OC, not from possession, the sale deed or the formation of your association. No other period is named in the Act.

Section 9 sub-section 2 provides for it. Where apartments were handed over before the Act commenced and the promoter is unable to file for reasons beyond his control, the Competent Authority shall, after hearing the promoter and the association of owners, allow the association of allottees to submit the declaration.

A fine which may extend to Rs 5,00,000, with a further fine up to Rs 2,000 for every day the default continues. For a general contravention the Act provides up to Rs 20,000 and a further Rs 1,000 per day. Every figure is a ceiling, and amounts left unpaid are recoverable as arrears of land revenue.

The Act says the declaration must be in such form and in such manner as may be prescribed, and must contain the particulars prescribed by section 9 sub-section 3. Those details sit in rules we have not verified. Get them in writing using the RTI application above.

• The Odisha Apartment Ownership and Management Act, 2023, ODISHA ACT 8 OF 2023, on India Code - long title, section 1 sub-sections 2 and 3, section 2 sub-sections 1 and 2, section 9 sub-sections 1 to 3, and the penalty and recovery provisions.
• Odisha Gazette Extraordinary No. 2464, Cuttack, 27 October 2023, Law Department Notification No. 17564-I-Legis-41/2023/L.
• The Right to Information Act, 2005 - sections 6 sub-section 1, 6 sub-section 3, 7 sub-section 1 and 19 sub-section 1.

• Apartment society maintenance overcharge in India
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