What a Project Website Can Say About Price, Carpet Area, and Possession

The brochure line and the chat answer are both claims

A buyer asks the project site for a price, a carpet area, and a possession date. The answer on the page, and the answer in the chat, is an advertisement if it invites that person to buy.

This is a reading of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 for marketing and sales teams. It is not a legal opinion. The state authority where the project is registered can add placement rules that the Act itself does not spell out. Check that order before you publish.

Key Takeaways:

• An advertisement includes publicity in any form that informs people about a project or invites a purchase. A project page is in that definition. (Act, section 2(b))
• Quote carpet area as the Act defines it. External walls, service shafts, an exclusive balcony, and an exclusive open terrace are not carpet area.
• The possession date on the page should be the completion period in the promoter's declaration, not an earlier sales estimate.
• The page must show the project's registration number and the authority's website. Font size and QR codes depend on the state.

If the site already gets visits, start with why a real estate website gets traffic but no leads. This article is the narrower question: which facts the page is allowed to state.

Does a project website count as an advertisement?

Yes. Section 2(b) defines an advertisement as any document issued as an advertisement through any medium. It includes a notice, a circular, or other publicity in any form that informs people about a real estate project, offers a plot, building, or apartment for sale, or invites a person to purchase or to pay an advance.

A landing page that lists a price does that. So does a chat reply that says a 3BHK is available at a stated price with a stated possession month. The medium does not take the reply outside the definition.

Section 3 is the gate before any of this copy goes live. A promoter is not to advertise, market, book, sell, or invite a purchase in a project in a planning area without registering that project. Section 3(2) lists narrow exceptions, including a size threshold that a state government may lower. Do not assume a small phase is exempt because a brochure says so. Read section 3(2) against the authority that covers the site.

Section 12 is the reason the wording matters after registration. If a person pays an advance on the basis of a notice, advertisement, or prospectus, or on the basis of a model apartment, and suffers loss because of an incorrect or false statement in it, the promoter compensates that person. (Section 12)

A chat transcript is not a loophole around that sentence. If the buyer relied on it and paid, the statement is the problem, not the widget.

What price and area can the page quote?

Quote the carpet area filed for that apartment, and label it as carpet area.

Section 2(k) defines carpet area as the net usable floor area of an apartment. It excludes the external walls, service shafts, the exclusive balcony or verandah, and the exclusive open terrace. It includes the area covered by the internal partition walls. The explanation to that clause limits "exclusive" balcony and terrace to the area meant for that allottee alone.

Section 4(2)(h) requires the registration to state the number, type, and carpet area of apartments for sale, along with the exclusive balcony or verandah area and the exclusive open terrace area, if any. The page should use those figures. A brochure "saleable" number that is larger than the filed carpet area is a different measurement. You can disclose it only if you name it as something other than carpet area, and you still show the carpet area beside it.

The Act does not, in section 2(k), ban every mention of built-up area. It does tell you which number is carpet area. Buyers are told to treat a super built-up quote as a warning sign in our NRI property buying guide. The same warning applies to the sentence your own site speaks first.

If goods and services tax applies to the unit, say whether the quoted price includes it. This article does not set the tax rate. A tax line that the cost sheet does not support is the same class of problem as a wrong area: the buyer is being given a figure they may rely on.

What possession date can the page give?

Use the completion period in the promoter's declaration for that project.

Section 4(2)(l)(C) requires a declaration, supported by an affidavit, stating the time period within which the promoter undertakes to complete the project or phase. That filed period is the date the page and the chat should repeat. An internal hope of an earlier handover is not a substitute.

Section 12 covers an incorrect statement about that timeline when a buyer pays on the strength of it. "Possession in 18 months" is a claim. If the declaration says a later quarter, the shorter sentence is the one that creates the loss.

Do not dress a deadline you will not keep as urgency. Our note on how not to fake scarcity already says a made-up price revision fails on trust and can fail under the Act. A made-up possession month fails the same way, with a named declaration to compare it against.

If the authority has recorded a revised completion period, the page should follow the revised record, not the original brochure. Say that the date is the one on the registration, and name the project it belongs to.

What must the page show besides the price?

Section 11(2) requires the advertisement or prospectus to mention prominently the website address of the Authority, where the project details have been entered, and the registration number obtained from the Authority.

"Prominently" is the word teams skip. A registration number in a footer at 8 pixels, in a colour close to the background, does not meet a rule written as "prominently." States have filled that word in differently. These are examples, not a national font chart:

If your project is in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, or another state, open that authority's latest order. Do not copy Kerala's right-top rule onto a Bengaluru page unless Karnataka has said the same thing.

Penalties are also in the Act, and they are not one number for every mistake. Section 59 deals with failure to register under section 3, or with section 4. The penalty may extend to ten percent of the estimated project cost, and a continued breach can go further, including imprisonment for a term that may extend to three years. Section 61 covers other contraventions of the Act or the rules, and that penalty may extend to five percent of the estimated project cost. Section 12 is different again: it is compensation to the person who relied on a false statement and suffered loss. The authority applies these sections. This table of examples is not a calculator.

What if two projects share one website?

Keep each project's price, carpet area, and completion period on that project's registration. A shared domain does not merge the filings.

This is the failure mode on portfolio sites. The visitor is on the Sarjapur page and asks about a 2BHK. The reply uses the Whitefield tower's rate, or the Whitefield possession quarter, because both projects were pasted into one script. Section 2(b) does not care that the error was a mix-up. The statement still informed the person about a project and invited a purchase.

Give each project its own registration number on the page where that project is described. A homepage that only shows the flagship number, then lets the chat answer for every other project, leaves those other projects without the section 11(2) disclosure at the point of the claim.

The practical test is one question, asked twice. "What is the carpet area, price, and possession of the 3BHK?" Ask it on project A, then on project B. The two answers should not match unless the two filings match. If they match because the source text was copied, fix the source before you fix the headline.

The same test applies to the sales script. A pitch that promises a date the filing does not support will be repeated by the desk after the visit. Align the script with the page using the same three facts, including in the sales pitch the team actually uses.

A check before the page goes live

Do this for every project on the domain. It is a document check, not a design review.

1. Confirm the project is registered, or that a section 3(2) exception truly applies, before the page invites a booking.
2. Put that project's registration number and the authority website on the page where the project is offered. Then read the state's order on size and placement.
3. Copy carpet area from the filing for each configuration you name. Label balcony and terrace separately when you mention them.
4. Copy the completion period from the section 4(2)(l)(C) declaration, including any revised period the authority has on record.
5. Read the price and say, in the same sentence, what it includes. If the cost sheet has moved, the page moves with it.
6. Ask the chat the buyer's question in your own words: price, carpet area, possession, and a second project if you have one. Reject any answer that is not in steps 3 to 5.
7. Keep the brochure, the page, and the chat on those same figures. A newer brochure that quietly changes the date is a new advertisement.

Whoever follows up the lead needs the same sheet. A correct page does not help if the next call quotes a different quarter. Fold the filed date into the lead follow-up the desk already runs.

If a person will answer through a chat rather than a form, train that reply on the filing, not on a generic property script. That is the point of automating the inquiry without dropping the specifics. Speed does not repair a wrong carpet area.

What this article does not decide

It does not list every state's QR-code order, model agreement, or advertising circular. Those change, and they are written by the authority for that state.

It does not tell you the goods and services tax on a given unit, the stamp duty, or whether a particular charge is a preferential location charge. Those belong on the cost sheet and in the tax notification that applies to the project.

It does not replace a lawyer or the authority. If a campaign is already out with a date you cannot find in the declaration, stop repeating that date and ask counsel before you "clarify" it with a second advertisement that still conflicts with the filing.

Questions teams ask before they publish

Does the chat on our website count as an advertisement?

If it informs a person about the project or invites a purchase or an advance, section 2(b) covers publicity in any form. Treat the reply as an advertisement. Match it to the filing, and keep the registration number on the page where the chat sits.

Can we still mention super built-up area?

You can mention another measurement if you name it as that measurement and you still show carpet area as section 2(k) defines it. Do not use the larger number as the answer to "how big is the apartment?"

Which possession date do we use if the brochure and the portal disagree?

Use the completion period in the declaration on the authority's record, including a revision the authority has accepted. The older brochure is the document to correct, not the other way around.

Use the filing, then publish

The page can say the price, the carpet area, and the possession period that belong to that registered project. It can say the registration number and where the authority has published the file. It should not say a larger area is carpet area, an earlier month is the promise, or a neighbouring project's rate is this project's rate.

Put the number on the page, then read the answer a buyer would get tonight. If those two disagree, the page is not ready.

When you want that check done on a live project, book a 15-minute demo and bring one filing with you.