The Union Government, through the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, has announced a Model Real Estate (Regulation of Development) Act. The Ministry has put up the draft Bill for discussion and has sought opinions from all stakeholders before it prepares a final draft and places it before the Parliament for approval.
According to the draft Bill, a regulatory authority and an appellate tribunal will be established to regulate, control and promote planned and healthy development and construction, sale, transfer and management of colonies, residential buildings, apartments and other similar properties. The authority will maintain a website containing all project details. These bodies will aim to protect the interests of buyers by ensuring that promoters conduct themselves with integrity. They will try to ensure that residential projects are developed on time and thereafter are maintained properly.
Key Benefits of the Act for common people are:
- The authority will have the power to cancel a developer’s registration if a customer complains against them and they are found to have violated the provisions of this Act.
- A promoter who develops or intends to develop a real estate project, shall be liable to make available be made available for inspection the sanction accorded by the Competent Authority, the registration granted by the Regulatory Authority, to all persons taking or intending to take a plot, a building or an apartment on ownership basis in the project, all such information and documents as may be prescribed or recommended by the Regulatory Authority. Which include the details of the parts of the colony or apartments and the appurtenant areas that are intended to be kept as common areas and facilities.
- No promoter shall issue or publish an advertisement or prospectus, offering for sale any plot, building or apartment, or inviting persons who intend to take such plots, buildings or apartments to make advances or deposits without registering with the Regulatory Authority under section 3, and without first filing a copy of the advertisement or prospectus in the office of the Regulatory Authority.
- When any person makes an advance or a deposit on the basis of the information contained in the advertisement or prospectus and sustains any loss or damage by reason of any untrue statement included therein, he shall be compensated by the promoter for any loss that he may have sustained consequent to such information.