MahaRERA Chairman asks home owners to test TS RERA rules in court

TS RERA organizes 1^st stake-holder workshop

By B T Srinivasan

Hyderabad, January 19

Quite expectedly, the first stake-holder interaction organized by the Telangana State Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), on Friday, 18 January, saw divergent views and focus from developers, promoters and buyers pressing their own standpoints.

Significantly, the Workshop convened by the TS RERA was addressed by none other than Shri Gautham Chatterjee, Chairman of the Maharashtra RERA (MahaRERA), on which the TS RERA is modelled. Further TS RERA also uses the same software as MahaRERA for its portal, a critical element in the implementation of the Central RERA Act and the State Rules.

Fledgling as it is, implementation of the TS RERA has come in for criticism on perceived dilutions of the Central Act given that projects taken up before the cut-off date of January 1, 2017 have been kept out of the ambit of the TS RERA rules leaving many potential home owners in the lurch, while many developers have shown a reluctance to register projects with the Authority.

But the TS RERA appears intent on making up for lost time and taking up measures in right earnest including educating stakeholders on the importance of RERA and the rules framed by TS RERA.

TS RERA Chairman, Shri Rajeshwari Tiwari, presided over the Workshop along with TS RERA Secretary Sri Vidyadar and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Chief City Planner Sri Devender Reddy.

Among those who attended it were Major Hanumantha Rao Malladi of Saket Apartment Resident’s Welfare Association, Alliance Space Station Owners Association members, U-FERWAS members B T Srinivasan, K Vijay Prasad Reddy, and K Raghavendra Rao representing home buyers, Sri Ram Reddy, President CREDAI, Hyderabad chapter along with Executive Members, representatives from GK Builders and other real estate developers.

Sharing his experiences Shri Chatterjee said while it ultimately boils down to trust between the buyer and the builders for the success or failure of any contract, it is legacy issues and matters like a smooth transition to the new system, lack of digital knowhow and general awareness of the rules, are the biggest challenges to the implementation of the RERA.

The role of the respective state authorities is important in this regard with a mandate to inculcate a sense of trust between the parties through a regulatory framework and educating them about it, he added giving examples of how the MahaRERA was doing this job.

So much so, the mere display of the MahaRERA logo on their advertisements is reassuring to home buyers while it is much easier for the builders to sell their stock in Maharashtra, he added.

It is important to recognize that the RERA Act is customer-centric and seeks to instil fiscal discipline among developers/builders while also informing potential buyers on various aspects of buying a property and ensuring speedy resolution of disputes through amicable negotiations.

The question and answer session after Shri Chatterjee’s address was on expected lines with respective stakeholders voicing their own interests and fears.  While participants sought clarifications on the very nomenclature used to describe to various players in the real estate sector, like builder, promoter, sub-promoter, land owners, and investor, and how they were treated under the Act, the builders on their turn were more interested in finding out how they could avoid registering with the Authority in the first place.

To a question on the apparent dilution of the RERA Act in the TS RERA rules, the MAHARERA chairman suggested perhaps it was a case for the aggrieved home owners to test the strength of the rules by taking recourse to the courts.

As for the penalty to be imposed on agents for advertising their projects without RERA registration on online apps like 99acres.com and Magicbricks.com, Shri Chatterjee said a committee had been constituted for Maharashtra and working out s solution.

Later Shri Chatterjee called on Shri Arvind Kumar, Principal Secretary Municipal, Urban sector & Information & PR, Telangana along with Shri Tiwari for discussions. “We received valuable inputs based on the MahaRERA best practices for Telangana”, Shri Arvind Kumar said.