The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) New Delhi Bench has ruled that homebuyers who have executed a conveyance deed and taken possession of their units are precluded from pursuing independent claims for delay compensation against a corporate debtor currently undergoing the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP). In a decision delivered on 5 October 2026, the Tribunal dismissed an application filed by two homebuyers, Pankaj Gupta and Prachi Jain, who sought to recover Rs 41.80 lakh in interest and compensation awarded to them by the Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (HRERA).

The applicants argued that the compensation, crystallised via an HRERA recovery certificate, constituted a financial debt under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and that the execution of their conveyance deed under protest in May 2025 did not waive their right to seek further relief. However, the Bench, comprising Judicial Member Mahendra Khandelwal and Technical Member Atul Chaturvedi, rejected these contentions, holding that the specific terms of the approved resolution plan override individual claims once the property transfer is formalised.

Legal Finality of Property Registration The dispute centered on whether the transfer of title via a registered conveyance deed serves as the terminal point for any further monetary claims against the developer. The Resolution Professional (RP) for Spaze Towers Pvt. Ltd. maintained that the company’s resolution plan explicitly treats the registration of a conveyance deed as a full and final settlement of all obligations. According to the RP, the applicants, by completing the registration process and taking possession of their unit in the “Spaze Privy AT-4” project in June 2025, essentially exited the category of creditors eligible for additional compensation.

The Tribunal noted that the applicants' previous withdrawal of an earlier application—relying on a prior assurance from the RP that their claims would be treated in accordance with law—did not grant them a permanent right to enforce a specific payout outside the framework of the resolution plan. The Court emphasized that once a conveyance deed is registered, the regulatory and contractual relationship shifts, and the protections afforded under the IBC's financial creditor class no longer apply to those specific claims.

Rejection of Independent Financial Debt Status While the applicants sought to equate their HRERA-awarded compensation with a financial debt under Section 5(8)(f) of the IBC, the Tribunal clarified that the nature of their claim changed upon the acceptance of the unit. The Court observed that the status of a decree-holder, while significant in other legal contexts, does not automatically grant a homebuyer the ability to bypass the distribution mechanism set out in a resolution plan. As the Court articulated:

“Thus, even assuming that the HRERA Order and Recovery Certificate had conferred upon the Applicants the status of decree-holders, the claim arising therefrom does not survive against the Corporate Debtor in view of the express terms of the Resolution Plan upon registration of the conveyance deed. The decree-holder status, therefore, cannot be relied upon to sustain any further claim against the Corporate Debtor.”

Impact on Collective Resolution Framework The NCLT’s order reinforces the principle that individual homebuyers cannot seek to challenge or alter the commercial wisdom of the Committee of Creditors (CoC) once a resolution plan is in motion. By attempting to separate their claim from the broader settlement framework of the project, the applicants were essentially trying to secure a preference not available to other similarly placed allottees who had accepted the terms of the plan.

The Tribunal further held that the act of executing the conveyance deed, regardless of the “under protest” notation added by the homebuyers, was a material event that fundamentally altered their legal standing. Because the resolution plan provides that registration of a conveyance deed constitutes full and final settlement of “any and all claims,” the Tribunal concluded that no further monetary or other claims could survive against the corporate debtor.

The decision underscores the high threshold for challenging the terms of a resolution plan in the real estate sector. By focusing on the finality of the conveyance deed, the NCLT has provided clarity that once an allottee chooses to accept the possession and ownership of their unit, the “financial creditor” status linked to pre-possession delay compensation is effectively extinguished. The application, I.A. 2379/ND/2026, was dismissed in its entirety, with the Tribunal declining to issue any order as to costs, effectively closing the door on the applicants' pursuit of the additional Rs 41.80 lakh in the insolvency proceedings.