Home buyers who have bought flats in over 35 ongoing apartment projects in the city are likely to be left to fend for themselves. The Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), established this year as a regulatory authority for the real estate sector and a forum that home buyers can approach for solutions, has refused registration for these projects.
Kapil Mohan, interim-chairman of RERA, refusing to name the developers of these projects, said the projects that have been refused registration were defective and most of them had no proper title deeds. Speaking at an interaction on RERA organised by FKCCI here on Saturday, he said: “How can we register projects with not even proper title deeds? If done so, we will be giving credence to these projects, which may lead to fooling more buyers.”
But where should home buyers from these projects seek relief?
Mr. Mohan says these buyers will have to seek other legal remedies such as consumer courts or file criminal cases against the developer seeking a refund. “RERA will act as an effective regulatory authority for future projects as it will similarly refuse registration for projects with improper title deeds and other irregularities, rendering them non-starters. But buyers in ongoing projects are likely to bear the brunt,” he admitted.
‘Not out of RERA’s purview’
But R. Ramesh, a property consultant, said RERA was in spirit brought in to protect home buyers from such cheating and rejection for registration would not put the project completely out of the purview of RERA Act, 2016. He added, “Ignorance of law is no defence. The home buyers should have looked into title deeds before buying.”
Given that a majority of the 400 complaints lodged with RERA pertain to projects that are not registered with RERA yet, will the authority intervene in these projects if home buyers lodge complaints with it?
Mr. Mohan said this would be a grey area legally.
“Post rejection of registration, if RERA intervenes, the developer is likely to argue he is out of the ambit. We will seek legal opinion on the matter and do our best to protect the interests of the home buyers,” he said.
M.S. Shankar, Fight for RERA – Karnataka Chapter, said RERA was right in turning down registrations for projects without title deeds. “But RERA must pro-actively make the names of projects and developers public, warning other home buyers. They must also write to the government seeking action against developers and refunds for home buyers,” he said.
Model sale deed soon
The Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) of Karnataka will soon notify a model sale deed for all real estate projects, said Mr. Mohan. “Presently each developer has their own sale deed, which is usually tilted towards the developer. We have prepared a draft of a model sale deed which is balanced for both developers and home buyers,” he said.
The model sale deed will make declaring carpet area of a flat mandatory, usually never done in sale deeds even by leading developers, apart from prescribing the same penalties and interests for delay in payments by home buyers or delay in timeline by developers. “The model sale deed is part of the RERA Act and will be binding on all developers,” he said.
