The single biggest risk in an under-construction property purchase isn't the flat itself — it's the developer's ability and willingness to deliver what was promised, on time and to the promised specification. Here's how to actually assess that.
**Check delivery history across their past 3-5 projects, not just their newest one.** A developer's marketing material will always highlight their best-performing project. Ask specifically about possession dates promised versus actually delivered across several previous projects — a pattern of consistent delays, even modest ones, is a meaningful signal worth weighing seriously.
**Visit a completed project, not just the sample flat of the one you're considering.** Sample flats are, by definition, presented at their absolute best. A completed, lived-in project from the same developer — ideally a few years old — shows you how their construction quality actually holds up over time, which is far more informative than a staged showroom unit.
**Check RERA complaint history for the developer, not just the specific project.** The WB-HIRA portal allows you to search complaints associated with a developer entity, not just an individual project — a developer with a pattern of complaints across multiple projects is telling you something more significant than an isolated issue on a single development.
**Assess financial stability where you can.** Publicly listed developers have available financial disclosures; for private developers, look at signs like project funding structure, whether they're relying heavily on buyer advance payments to fund construction (riskier) versus having independent financing lined up, and how many concurrent projects they're managing relative to their apparent scale.
**Talk to actual residents of a completed project, if you can.** Online reviews can be unreliable in either direction, but a conversation with residents of an older project by the same developer about construction quality, how promptly maintenance issues get resolved, and overall satisfaction tends to be more genuinely informative than any marketing material.
**Look at how transparently they handle problems, not just whether problems exist.** Every developer has faced some construction issues or delays at some point — what differentiates a reliable one is how transparently and fairly they communicate about and resolve those issues when they arise, rather than whether issues occurred at all.
**A reasonable middle ground on newer developers.** Not every solid developer has a decade of history — newer, smaller developers can be genuinely reliable too. For these, weigh the individual project's specific fundamentals (approvals, funding structure, construction progress relative to timeline) more heavily, since track record data is limited by definition.
At Lanivas Properties, we vet developer track record as part of every listing we bring onto our platform — ask our team for a specific developer's delivery history before you commit to a project.