OC and CC, explained

A building that looks finished is not the same thing as a building you may legally live in. Two certificates separate the two. A completion certificate says the building was built the way it was approved. An occupancy certificate says it may actually be occupied, because water, drainage and power are in place for it. Sales teams often use the two names loosely, sometimes for the same document, sometimes not, and a flat marketed as “ready” is not always ready in the sense either certificate means.

The difference is not a paperwork technicality. Whether BESCOM and BWSSB will connect the building, whether a bank will lend against it, whether you can get a khata, and whether GST is still running on your payments all turn on which certificate exists, and when. This guide sets out what each one is in law, who issues it and on what, what a missing OC actually costs you, and how to check for yourself rather than take a brochure’s word for it.

What each certificate proves

Both terms have a precise legal meaning under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, which applies across India including Karnataka, and the two are not interchangeable.

A completion certificate is the corporation’s confirmation that the construction itself matches what was approved. RERA defines it as “the completion certificate, or such other certificate, by whatever name called, issued by the competent authority certifying that the real estate project has been developed according to the sanctioned plan, layout plan and specifications, as approved by the competent authority under the local laws” (s.2(q)). It says nothing, on its own, about whether anyone may move in.

An occupancy certificate goes a step further. RERA defines it as the certificate “issued by the competent authority permitting occupation of any building, as provided under local laws, which has provision for civic infrastructure such as water, sanitation and electricity” (s.2(zf)). This is the certificate that everything else in this guide – utilities, loans, khata, GST – actually keys off.

In Bengaluru both come from the same office. The builder applies to the Commissioner within 30 days of finishing construction, with a completion report and as-built floor plans certified by an empanelled architect or engineer, stating that the building was constructed to the sanctioned plan. The Additional Chief Town Planner then inspects it before the Commissioner grants or refuses the OC (Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, s.241(1)–(3)). Our guide to every document behind a flat covers where the sanctioned plan, the commencement certificate and RERA registration fit before this stage.

Partial and deemed OC

A large project is rarely finished all at once, and the law does not require it to be. The Act itself refers to an OC issued “partial or final” (s.246(5)), and in practice a corporation can issue one tower at a time as each block is completed and inspected. If your tower has a partial OC while the rest of the project is still coming up, you can move in, but the clubhouse, landscaping or other blocks may still be under construction. Ask exactly which towers, floors or blocks the certificate you have been shown actually covers; a partial OC for someone else’s block tells you nothing about yours.

The Act also builds in a deadline for the corporation itself. Once the builder has given notice that construction is complete, occupation is treated as permitted if the Commissioner neither grants nor refuses the OC within 30 days: “the Commissioner has failed for thirty days after receipt of the notice of completion to intimate his refusal of the said permission” (s.241(5)). This deemed permission is a real legal protection against an office simply sitting on a file. It is not, however, the same reassurance as a certificate in hand. A builder relying on it should be able to show you the completion notice itself and its date; an OC in hand is still the better answer, not least because the Commissioner can “at any time withdraw, suspend or cancel” an OC later found to have been wrongly issued (s.241(6)), and no such power exists over a deemed permission that was never formally granted or examined.

The Supreme Court’s 2024 order

In December 2024 the Supreme Court went further than Karnataka’s own law, and made the certificate a condition utilities and lenders across India must actually check for, not merely a rule they may. Ruling in a case about unauthorised construction, the Court directed that service connections and loans are to follow the paper, not the builder’s word:

The same order deals with what happens when a deviation turns up. If one is noticed while the application is pending, “the process of issuance of completion/occupation certificate should be deferred, unless and until the deviations pointed out are completely rectified.” And a certificate already issued is not the end of the matter: if a violation surfaces later, the officer responsible for “issuance of wrongful completion/occupation certificate shall be proceeded departmentally forthwith.” In other words, the certificate is meant to track the building as built, at every stage, not just at the moment it was signed.

What a missing OC costs you

Put together, Karnataka’s own Act and the Supreme Court’s order mean a missing OC is not a loose end you can tidy up later at your own pace. It reaches into most of the transactions that follow a purchase.

Two of these rows repay a closer look. The GST line turns on the completion certificate specifically, not the occupancy certificate: the two usually arrive close together in Bengaluru, but the rule that ends GST is that the whole price is paid after the completion certificate is issued, whichever certificate is in hand at that point. That rule is well established and our full-cost guide and under construction vs ready guide both work through what it means for a payment schedule.

Registration is the one point where the law is less absolute than the others. We could not find a rule that stops a sub-registrar registering your sale deed simply because the building has no OC; the pending 2025 amendment to the Registration Act that would let a sub-registrar demand specific documents names “the property or land sketch … conversion order, sanctioned plan, electronic Khata or title deed”, not the OC, and it is not yet in force in any case. What does tie registration to the OC in practice is the khata. Bengaluru has needed an e-khata to register a sale since late 2024, our khata guide explains, and a new building only gets its bulk khata once the corporation has issued the OC. No OC generally means no khata to register against, well before any question of the sub-registrar’s own paperwork rules arises. Separately, Karnataka’s model agreement for sale already obliges the builder to hand you the OC at the same time as the sale deed, so in an ordinary new-build purchase the question should not come up at all.

Buying a flat with no OC

None of this means you can never buy a flat before its OC exists. Buying under construction, on a registered agreement for sale, is entirely normal, and RERA is built around exactly that: staged payments, a project account and a possession date, long before any certificate is issued. The risk this section is about is narrower: a builder marketing a finished-looking building as ready, with no OC yet, and no firm date for one.

In that situation you are carrying risk the certificate exists precisely to remove. Utilities may run on a temporary connection with no fixed date to go permanent. A bank should not lend against the building as security until the certificate is produced, which can leave you financing a purchase your own lender is reluctant to close on. And because the Commissioner can withdraw or cancel an OC later found to be wrongly granted, even a certificate you are shown is worth checking rather than assuming settles the matter for good, particularly on an older building you did not watch through construction.

If you go ahead regardless, get the promoter’s commitment in writing, tied to a date, not a general assurance that it is “in process”. Hold back the instalment that Karnataka’s model agreement links to the OC rather than pay it against a promise, and make possession itself conditional on the certificate existing, not on the builder handing you keys informally. Our agreement for sale vs sale deed guide sets out what the model agreement says possession should wait for, and our handover and snag list guide covers what to check for at the door.

How to verify an OC

Do not rely on what a sales brochure or a listing calls “ready”. Three checks are worth doing, and none of them cost anything.

• The corporation’s own records. Building-plan sanctions and occupancy certificates sit with whichever authority actually covers that land. Our who approved the building guide sets out which authority that is, by area, and how to check its online records for yourself rather than through the builder.
• The RERA filing – with a catch. A project’s Karnataka RERA page is useful for almost everything about a purchase, but not this. “It isn’t part of the RERA record, so a filing can’t tell you a building is ready to live in”, as our guide to reading a RERA filing puts it. A high build percentage on the filing is not evidence of an OC; ask for the certificate itself.
• The khata. Because a bulk khata only follows the OC, a building’s khata status is a useful secondary signal. A flat with only a provisional bulk khata, or none at all, is a flat whose OC is worth asking about directly.

On a resale flat, ask the seller for their own copy of the OC, which the model agreement should already have put in their hands at their sale deed. Our new vs resale guide covers what else that no-dues and paperwork check should include.

The OC and possession

Once the OC exists, the clock changes for both sides. RERA puts a firm date on how long you can wait before you are expected to act: “Every allottee shall take physical possession of the apartment, plot or building … within a period of two months of the occupancy certificate issued for the said apartment, plot or building” (s.19(10)). The certificate is the trigger; the two months run from its date, not from whenever you happen to collect the keys.

A late OC delays every step after it, including your own deadline; a builder cannot hold you to a possession clock that has not started because the certificate has not been issued. Once it has, though, the two months run whether or not you feel ready, so use the run-up to the certificate to get your own paperwork, loan disbursal and moving plans in order rather than starting them afterwards.

Before you buy

• Ask which certificate you are actually being shown: a completion certificate is not an occupancy certificate, whatever the sales team calls it.
• Get the OC itself, in writing, rather than a build percentage or a verbal assurance that it is “in process”.
• For a partial OC, check exactly which towers or blocks it covers, and ask when the rest will follow.
• Do not rely on the RERA filing to show an OC; it is not part of that record.
• Check the khata status as a second signal – no bulk khata usually means no OC yet.
• Before you pay against it, confirm your bank will lend against the building; after December 2024 it should ask for the same certificate you should be asking for.
• Hold the OC-linked instalment and possession clause to what the model agreement actually promises, rather than to an informal handover.