The much awaited Real Estate Bill was passed in Lok Sabha on Thursday, 10th March, 2016. The core objective of the bill is to protect the buyer’s interest and also to bring the transparency to the sector.
The bill was presented in 2013 and amendments have been made to it by present government.
The finance ministry had pointed out the facts in 2012 that the real estate sector was highly vulnerable to the black money because of the under reporting of transactions.
LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT SOME OF THE KEY FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF THE REAL ESTATE BILL.
1. The state level Real Estate Regulatory Authorities (RERAs) will be established which will regulate the transaction with regards to both residential and commercial property. These regulatory authorities can be approached for the redressal of the grievances against the builder.
2. No pre launch will be allowed without obtaining the approval of all the local authorities and registration from the regulating authority.
3. This bill aims at eradicate discrimination of any kind on basis of religion, region, caste, creed or sex and gender with regards to selling flats and plots.
4. All projects will have to be registered with regulatory authorities, and developers will have to disclose project information including details of the promoter, project, layout plan, land status, status of approvals and agreements along with details of real estate agents, contractors, architects and structural engineers.
5. The builders were following a practice of selling the property on the basis of ambiguous super built up area (which includes both flat area and common area) for a real estate project. This bill will essentially stop this practice by making it illegal. Carpet area has been clearly defined in the law. Any violation may result into jail term of upto three years or penalty.
6. One of the major problems faced by the buyers is that they don’t get possession of the property in time as promised by the builder. The bill ensures that at least 70% of the buyer’s money will be kept in a separate bank account and it will only be used for the construction activity.
7. If the builder is unable to give possession of the property to the buyer on time, then the he will be liable to pay interest to the buyer at the same rate which he is charging to the buyer for late payments.
8. Builders can no longer lure the buyers by putting up flashy designs or photographs of a project and failing to deliver project that match the claims.
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