The K-RERA annual audit report (Form-7): what promoters must file by 15 November 2026

Short answer: every project registered with the Karnataka Real Estate Regulatory Authority (K-RERA) needs an annual audit report in Form-7 for FY 2025-26. It is signed by the promoter's statutory auditor and uploaded through the portal's Annual Audit module with the audited financial statements, cash flow, income-tax return and auditor's report. The deadline is 15 November 2026 under Circular No. RERA/Accounts/CR/20/2026-27 dated 19 June 2026. Missing it attracts a penalty under section 60. For the last two years that was a fixed amount per project, from ₹20,000 to ₹1,00,000 depending on project cost.

The legal basis

The third proviso to section 4(2)(l)(D) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 requires the promoter to have its accounts audited within six months after the end of every financial year by a chartered accountant in practice. The promoter must produce a statement of accounts certified and signed by that CA. The audit must verify two things:

1. that the amounts collected for a particular project were used for that project, and
2. that withdrawals from the designated account kept to the proportion of completion of the project.

K-RERA prescribes the format as Form-7, the Annual Report on Statement of Accounts. It is in Regulation 3(1)(iii) of the Karnataka RERA (General) Regulations 2022 and on the K-RERA downloads page. Form-7 checks the whole year of quarterly withdrawals certified in Form-4, which are explained in the withdrawal certificate and the 70% rule.

The FY 2025-26 dates

The Act's six-month window and K-RERA's filing date are two different dates. Enforcement so far has followed the filing date. The FY 2024-25 report was first due on 15 November 2025. That was extended to 10 December and then 31 December 2025, and a last chance without penalty ran to 20 January 2026. After that, penalties were levied. Treat 15 November 2026 as the date.

The income-tax return is one of the attachments, so the tax filing has to be finished before the Form-7 upload. The quarterly update due on 15 October has its own penalty of ₹25,000 per late quarter for FY 2026-27. See the quarterly progress report.

Who can sign it

The Act says "a chartered accountant in practice", and K-RERA's circulars repeat that wording. The Karnataka Regulations are narrower:

• Form-7 is signed by the statutory auditor of the promoter's enterprise (Regulations 3(1)(iii) and 29(4)).
• The CA who issues the quarterly Form-4 withdrawal certificates must be a different entity (Explanation to Regulation 3).

The split is deliberate: the year-end auditor checks certificates it did not issue. The practical consequence is that the Form-7 must come from your statutory audit firm, so book the work into the statutory audit timetable rather than treating it as a separate certificate later.

The Regulations do not deal with a promoter that has no statutory auditor, such as a partnership firm or an individual not required to have its accounts audited under any law. In that case, confirm who should sign through the K-RERA helpdesk before appointing anyone. Maharashtra's equivalent is Form 5, also from the statutory auditor. Guidance written for MahaRERA uses that number.

What Form-7 contains

What the auditor tests

Annexure B turns the audit into a set of specific questions:

1. Was a separate RERA bank account opened, and was it the account declared at registration?
2. If the account was changed, was K-RERA's approval taken under the Bank Account Directions?
3. Did any Form-4 issued in the year require 100% deposit under Rule 4(5)?
4. Is the project registered as new or ongoing?
5. Were fixed deposits made from the account kept with the same bank branch, and is any lien created on them?
6. Was more than 10% of the price collected from any buyer without a registered agreement for sale (section 13)?
7. Are there loans, is the encumbrance on the land reported to K-RERA, and has any booked unit been mortgaged?
8. Did any Form-4, Form-5 or Form-6 carry a qualification in the year?
9. For each quarter: cost incurred, eligible amount, amount withdrawn, and any excess.
10. Were all real estate agents engaged by the promoter registered, with fees paid only as permitted?

Behind those questions the auditor rebuilds the year from the evidence. That means the collection register against bank statements, the deposit percentage for each receipt, the four quarter-end Form-4 computations against the books, and cost incurred against the registered estimate. It also means tracing money withdrawn to spending on the project. Regulation 29(1) says there is "no end use restriction" on correctly withdrawn amounts. Form-7 still asks the auditor to report anything withdrawn and not used in accordance with RERA, so the use of the money is examined as well.

The qualifications that recur

Most observations fall into a handful of patterns:

• Receipts that never reached the designated account. Buyer payments that went to a group or operating account, a channel partner or the landowner and were not swept. Joint developments are prone to this, because K-RERA Circular 03/2019 requires 70% of landowner-share sales before completion to go into the project account as well.
• Withdrawals above the eligible amount in a quarter, or withdrawals with no Form-4 behind them.
• GST inside the deposit base, or a deposit percentage that does not reconcile to Form-4.
• Cost overruns not reflected in the registered estimate. That changes the percentages behind every Form-4 of the year.
• Common costs with no allocation basis. Land bought for several phases, interest on a corporate loan, or shared site overheads charged to one project.
• Inter-project transfers. Money withdrawn from one project's account and used on another.
• Fixed deposits at a different branch, or with a lien for an overdraft.
• Advances above 10% before a registered agreement for sale.
• Figures that disagree with the portal. Numbers in Form-7 that do not match what the promoter reported in its quarterly updates. The same mismatch drives RERA-versus-GST notices.

Some of these can be put right before the report is signed: a top-up deposit into the designated account, a documented allocation basis, a revised estimate filed with the Authority. Others can only be disclosed. Knowing which is which in October leaves time to act.

Several projects in one company

Form-7 is issued per RERA registration number. The Bank Account Directions require the report for each project registered by the promoter. Each separately registered phase is its own project, with its own designated account and its own Form-7.

The attachments are entity-level: one set of audited financial statements for the company, one income-tax return. The Form-7 tables are project-level. In practice this needs:

• Project-wise ledgers or cost centres for collections, land, construction, interest and liabilities, from registration onwards (Table C runs year by year from the registration date);
• a written allocation basis for common costs, applied consistently, which the auditor can test;
• a reconciliation from the project totals back to the company's audited figures, so that the projects add up to the entity;
• an inter-project funding schedule, because any transfer between projects will be asked about.

A company with one Form-7 per project and no reconciliation between them should expect questions on every report.

Penalties

The 19 June 2026 circular states that failing to submit Form-7 for FY 2025-26 on time may attract a penalty under section 60, which runs up to 5% of the estimated project cost. K-RERA has not announced a figure for FY 2025-26. For the two earlier years it used a fixed schedule per project:

Source: K-RERA circulars dated 7 February 2026 (FY 2023-24) and 9 January 2026 (FY 2024-25). The FY 2024-25 circular counts the first year of default as ending on 31 March 2026, with further years from each following 1 April. It also said recovery action would begin from 1 April 2026 against promoters who neither paid nor filed. The penalty is paid through the K-RERA e-payment option in the Annual Audit module.

A late report is the smaller risk. A report that shows diversion or excess withdrawal can bring action under section 60 for the underlying breach, and under Regulation 3(2) the professionals who signed the quarterly certificates are referred to their professional bodies.

Getting it done between now and 15 November

1. List every registration number, including separately registered phases and projects completed during the year.
2. Collect the four quarter-end Form-4s for FY 2025-26, with the Form-5s and Form-6s behind them, and each designated account statement for the full year.
3. Rebuild Table A from the collection register, excluding GST and pass-through charges, and reconcile it to the quarterly updates already on the portal.
4. Put the allocation basis for common costs in writing before the auditor asks.
5. Deal with shortfalls now. Top up the designated account, and get a no-lien certificate for every fixed deposit.
6. Finish the statutory audit and the tax return first. Both are attachments.
7. Upload through Annual Audit under Registration on the K-RERA portal, one project at a time, and keep the acknowledgements.

The dates that run alongside this are in the Karnataka RERA compliance calendar. Form-7 reports and the related project reconciliations are handled under RERA compliance and certification.

This is a working note on the Karnataka position as of 29 September 2026. It is not the text of the Act, the Rules, the Regulations or the K-RERA circulars, and not an opinion on any particular project. K-RERA has extended and penalised Form-7 deadlines by circular in each of the last two years. Before relying on a date or penalty amount, check the circulars page of the K-RERA portal, and confirm the current Form-7 template in the Annual Audit module.