Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to techniques for performing handover from a source base station to a target base station. According to one aspect, a method generally includes receiving a handover request from a source base station for handover of communication of a user equipment from the source base station to the target base station, generating a scheduling uplink grant for the user equipment to transmit a handover complete message based on receiving the handover request, and communicating the grant to the user equipment.