Homebuyers have sought a “physical verification” of all projects from sanctioning authorities who issued Occupancy Certificate (OC) and partial OCs to real estate projects since January 1, 2017.
The Forum for People’s Collective Efforts, Karnataka Chapter (formerly Fight for RERA), has alleged that many promoters of multi-storey apartment projects had been in a “hurry” to obtain OCs from the plan sanctioning authorities between January 2017 and July 2017 without completion of their projects, just before implementation of RERA in Karnataka. This was done to escape from registration of their projects as per provisions of the RERA Act.
The forum has urged the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) to review all OCs issued since implementation of the RERA Act to verify if there is compliance with the Act.
In representations submitted to the BBMP and the BDA, the forum said the two agencies, which are mainly responsible for sanctioning project plans and issuing commencement and occupancy certificates, should review their functioning as per the RERA Act. “A physical inspection of all such projects in which an OC was issued since January 1, 2017, and reverify completion of the projects is very much necessary. It will help for proper implementation of RERA in Karnataka in true letter and spirit,” the representation said.
M.S. Shankar from the forum also pointed to a recent Karnataka RERA (KRERA) order that not only made the developer in question accountable despite not having registered under RERA, but also pointed to irregularities in obtaining the OC from the BDA.
Elaborating, the forum says according to RERA, the development scope of a project includes external work such as roads, landscaping, water supply, sewerage and drainage, electricity supply and solid-waste management, while internal development work means parks, tree planting, street lighting, water conservation, energy management, fire protection and safety requirements, among others.
“The OC or CC has to be issued only after all development works are complete. The same should be the criteria for granting these OC and CC from the date of RERA implementation. It is observed that there are many cases where partial OC has been issued terming it phase-wise development of a project even though phase-wise development sanction for the project was not obtained. All such acts of issuing OC and partial OC without following RERA guidelines and issuing OC in yet-to-be-completed projects amount to fraud/forgery to help promoters ignore the interest of homebuyers,” the forum said.
BDA Commissioner N. Manjula said she will hold discussions with the forum members before planning further action.
BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad said he would go through the representation and see what action can be taken.
