NEW DELHI: The urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu today approved the final rules to implement the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) for Delhi, and has designated Udai Pratap Singh, the vice-chairman of Delhi Development Authority (DDA), as the interim regulator.
The rules, which will be notified by the November 27, are same as notified by the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation (HUPA) on October 31, according to a government release. However, they provide clarity on a few aspects.
Regulatory authorities can now undertake third party quality audit of real estate projects to ensure quality of construction and services.
Builders will have to publish litigation details on websites about only those cases which have been disposed of by the concerned court in the past five years.
“This has been considered since a promoter may not have complete information about various cases filed, at the time of providing such information to regulatory authorities,” the release said.
The builder-buyer agreement for sale can now include other elements or features, if required, besides the apartment, plot, garage and parking.
The provision in the rules that promoter needs to give details of only those cases which has been disposed of and not all those which are pending is dilution in favour of builders, according to Abhay Upadhyay, national convenor, Fight For RERA, a homebuyers’ body.
“This is in contradiction to Section 4 (2)(b) of RERA, which clearly provides “……….details of cases pending”. This provision will curb transparency and consumers will not be able to take informed decisions,” he said.
Interim regulator will undertake preparatory actions like setting up website and putting in place required institutional mechanisms for the full fledged regulator. “Registration of real projects will begin only after notification of Section 3 of the Real Estate Act by HUPA, which will be done in due course,” according to a release.
The RERA rules for Delhi has come at a time when both Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, the only states other than Delhi to notify RERA rules so far, have been criticized for diluting rules in favour of the builder community.
After all states, except Gujarat, missed the October 31 deadline for notifying the RERA rules, the deadline has now been extended to November 27.
Courtsey: Sanu Sandilya | ETRealty | 23-November-2016