UP rolls out rules to protect homebuyers
GHAZIABAD:In good news to homebuyers in Noida and Ghaziabad, the Uttar Pradesh housing and urban planning department rolled out the Uttar Pradesh (Regulation & Development) Rules, 2016, on Tuesday.
The Centre had also on Monday finalised the rules under the landmark realty law that will not only protect new homebuyers from unscrupulous developers but also safeguard the interest of allottees of ongoing projects. The rules were finalised and notification was issued on October 27.
The rules by the Centre have cleared the opacity around ongoing projects that have not received completion certificates till now.
On the other hand, the UP Rules have defined the ‘ongoing projects’ as ones where developmentisgoingonandforwhichthe completion certification has not beenissued.However,thiscomes with several exclusions like projects where services have been handed over to the local authorities(likeRWAs)formaintenance.
“We had opposed the latter (RWA clause) earlier too. It is because there are many instances where builders refused to run the maintenance of projects and RWAs had to take over the maintenance to run the essential services,” said Alok Kumar, founder, federation of association of apartment owners, Ghaziabad.
The excluded projects include those where all development work have been completed and sale/lease deeds of 60% of the apartments/houses/plots have been executed or where all development works have been completed and application has been filedwiththecompetentauthority forissueofcompletioncertificate.
As per the UP Rules, any refund of money along with applicable interest and compensation, in terms of the Act or rules and regulations, is payable to the allottee within 45 days from the date on which such refund becomes due.
“It is a major step towards the protection of the homebuyers as many of them have waited for years to get possession or the refund,” said Abhishek Kumar, president, Noida extension flat owner’s association (NEFOWA).
The rules have laid down that the regulatory authority will ensure project information is available on its website and that the promoter will upload updates of the projects on the webpage within seven days from the expiry of each quarter.
Theruleshavefurtherannounced registration of real estate agents which are required to make an applicationforregistrationtothe regulatory authority.
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, was passed in both the Houses of Parliament in March and came into force in May. The state governments were asked to frame Rules for the Act and constitute the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), the regulatory body with which developers have to register their projects.