What is completion certificate?
Also called: CC, building completion certificate, BCC, completion certificate meaning
This certificate is the authority's confirmation that a building or layout was built according to the sanctioned plan and specifications. Section 2(q) of the RERA Act defines it as the competent authority's certificate saying exactly that, as approved under local laws.
The OC answers "can people live here?" The completion certificate answers "was it built as approved?" In some cities they're two documents and in others they arrive together or as one. Mumbai has long issued a building completion certificate alongside the OC, while in Bengaluru most flat buyers only ever see the OC.
Watch the abbreviation. In Mumbai and Pune, "CC" almost always means the commencement certificate that lets construction start. In Delhi NCR the same two letters usually mean completion. A seller in Thane saying "CC is there" may be talking about permission to build, not proof that the building is finished.
RERA uses the certificate in several places. Section 3(2)(b) exempts projects that had a completion certificate before the Act began. Section 11(4)(b) makes the builder obtain the completion certificate or OC, or both, and hand them to buyers or their association. Lenders, the society registrar and the sub-registrar at conveyance stage will ask for it at some point.
For plotted colonies it matters more than an OC, because there's no single building to occupy. The colony's completion certificate confirms the internal roads, drains, water lines and parks were laid to the approved layout. It doesn't approve the houses built on those plots later, which each need their own plan sanction and OC.
In a DTCP-licensed plotted colony in Sector 70, Gurugram, the colony-level completion certificate lets maintenance pass to the residents' body. A buyer building on a 200 sq yd plot there still has to get a separate building plan approved.
Treating "CC" as one thing. Ask which CC is meant, and read the date and issuing authority on the document itself.
Questions people ask about completion certificate
Is a completion certificate the same as an OC?
No, although some authorities issue them together. The completion certificate says the construction matches the approval; the OC permits people to occupy it.
Can a builder give possession with only a completion certificate?
Possession is normally tied to the OC, and most state model agreements say it is offered after the OC is received. Where both exist, ask for both.