If “Buying home to get safer..” article in Times of India comes true - this is a huge reason to cheer for most Indians. This is a proposal to impose regulations on the property developers to ensure the buyer is protected.

Buying a property is a nightmare here with not even a single builder treating customers fairly. Almost every builder will promise more and deliver less and at times does not even deliver. The buyers are left high and dry as they would have already deposited their hard earned savings and in addition paying the bank loans.

If this bill becomes a reality, the developer will have to specify the “living area” clearly. Everywhere the sale is done based on the super built up area which is ~30-35% more than the living area and this is where the developers make their money.

The clause I liked most here is

“If there is any deviation from the advertisement, the promoter has to compensate buyers for any loss due to false information. In case of pulling out of a project, the builder has to return the money with interest at a rate not more than current rate.”

I wish this was the case when I bought my flat. The builder where I bought the flat promised to provide facilities like Jogging track, Maze Garden, Koi Pond (not sure how it looks )- and towards the end of the project, these mystically vanished. Most other amenities promised are of scaled down versions of what was promised (or what was marketed as). Any questions to the builder on these are met with a blank response and evasive answers if the owners persist. 

Also, per the proposed law, builder cannot impose additional charges once the sale deed is done - this is a real boon. The number of times builders charge extra in name of cost escalation of input materials and in name of getting additional approvals from civic agencies is very frequent. For example, my builder suddenly discovered towards the completion of project that installing Solar Water Heater is mandatory to get clearance and thus asked owners to cough up Rs. 50,000/- extra.

Hopefully, with the new bill, these issues will be reduced drastically.

Filed under: General