Defaulting builder’s excuses fox hapless home-buyers

LUCKNOW: A defaulting builder is allegedly making strange excuses for delay in project delivery and even not paying back the deposits of aggrieved home-buyers, who have sought a refund.

SK Ghosh, who has booked a property with Ansal API, says: “I was shocked to see the realtor’s lawyer citing demonetisation, economic slowdown and even invoking force majeure – a clause which is used in natural calamities and disasters – to justify the delay in the delivery of my flat.”

Unlike most aggrieved homebuyers, who seek a refund of their money following a delay in project delivery by an erring realtor, Ghosh says he is willing to wait but wants delivery of his flat.

“Imagine my astonishment, therefore, when Ansal API’s representative said that they were willing to refund my money, as a goodwill gesture on my request, in a written submission before the UPRERA bench. I never made any such request,” he said. Ansal API did not take calls made by HT for their version on the issue.

Odd though it may look, Ghosh has adopted the position after making a careful reading of the RERA Act, something not many home-buyers are well-versed with as yet. The Act lays down heavy penalties on builders for delayed delivery of flats to protect the interest of home-buyers.

Section 2(za)-ii, Chapter 1 of the Act says the rate of interest should be equal for both buyers and builder. But it is not a level playing field as most of the builder/buyer agreements were executed before RERA came into being and enacted standard agreement for sale rules, notified only a couple of months ago.

The home-buyers argument is: Buyer pays 18-24% interest for any delay in payment, and the builder pays only 9.25% (marginal cost of lending rate – on which banks give home loan, which is around 8.25 plus 1%) as laid down in the UPRERA Rules.

“Most builders take almost 80 to 90% of the cost during the basic construction stage and probably divert the funds to their other projects, causing endless delays. As a result, all of us have been losing lakhs towards interest on our deposits and interest that we pay towards bank loans. But we cannot do anything about it as we are forced to sign the one-sided agreement, intentionally designed to favour the builder,” said Ghosh.

UPRERA, which has received more than 400 complaints against the developer, put the concerned hi-tech township under the scanner by ordering a forensic audit for alleged diversion of funds from the project. “We are not concerned with excuses, no matter how flimsy they may be, being given by the realtor but worried over the way the UPRERA authorities are giving adjournments and not deciding the cases in a time-bound manner,” says Ruchi G Puri, also one of the aggrieved allottees. Some of the buyers accused officials of having a ‘soft corner’ for the developer.

But secretary UPRERA Abrar Ahmed brushed aside the charge. “Look at the large number of complaints we have. Maharashtra RERA has 3,000 complaints whereas we have 9,000 cases out of which 2,500 complaints have been decided,” he pointed out.