We are trying to put huge emphasis on regulatory oversight: MahaRERA chief

The highest number of complaints pertains to buyers stating that their flat delivery has not been done on time or that the possession of their flat has not been granted as yet. The act does have provision which entails the builder paying interest for the delay and also allows the buyer to withdraw his money. However there are instances where the buyer finds out that even the money that he has invested has disappeared. This is the other complaint that we receive. We also receive complaints with regards to the quality of construction and promises about amenities being not met. But these are a small percentage of the complaints.

How are these complaints being addressed?

MahaRERA plays two roles. One is that of regulatory oversight and second is redressal or adjudication. We believe that if our regulatory oversight is strong then people will not end up in litigation. What we are trying to do now is put huge emphasis on regulatory oversight.

We are paying a lot of attention in doing due diligence while ensuring the registration process of housing projects. We are looking at all documents including land titles, building permissions and their finances before registering these projects. While this may take time, seeing a RERA registration gives the buyer some confidence that basic due diligence has been done on the project. We are also ensuring that quarterly progress reports are filed on time by developers. We sent 14,000 notices for not filing quarterly progress reports (QPRs). With this constant over oversight, developers have realised that MahaRERA is constantly monitoring their activities.

People said that when RERA came into being, this will lead to the sector getting organised and all the bad elements will move out of the business. How much of that has happened?

Pre-RERA, about 23 percent of the projects had litigation. Compare this to the period after RERA came into effect. The projects that started post 2017-18, only 3.5 percent are undergoing litigation. So that itself is a huge indication of what is happening.

Despite effective implementation of RERA regulation, there have been instances where rogue builders have carried frauds. Last year the Mumbai Police registered housing fraud cases worth Rs 1,166 crore. In such situations what kind of preventive measures are you seeking to implement ?

Most of these are pre-RERA cases, prior to 2017. The only way to prevent this is to ask the builders to submit their quarterly progress of the project unfailingly and if you don’t, then we will initiate action.

Are we blacklisting any such developers who are actually in the purview of ED or any scams ?

As of now, we haven’t started the process of blacklisting, but we are definitely putting out information about the backgrounds for buyers. For example, we put out information about all builders facing a corporate insolvency resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). So, if we tell a buyer that a particular builder has got several litigations against him, he has not submitted his reports and also has an EOW case against him, then the buyer will not buy from him.

The criticism that the institution faces is that of pendency of cases. Do you think that MahaRERA has the bandwidth and the state is doing enough to facilitate the work or to augment the capacity?

Pendency is a cause for worry. Today, we have around 7,000-odd cases pending, these are in the pipeline waiting for adjudication. We get almost 300 new cases a month. On an average, we are also able to dispose of the same amount of cases per month. So this pendency is because, while we are disposing of cases, the same amount gets added as new cases. The Act says that there should be three members, today we have two. The minute we get one more member, the pendency will come down. I am told that we are likely to get a member soon.

The instances of builders in interiors of Maharashtra fleecing investors is high. How are we dealing with this?

It is true that there are instances of small developers fleecing the people, especially in non-metro cities. To avoid this two things must happen. Local bodies need to be more vigilant when they give approvals to ensure that the developers are compliant of local bylaws which include critical approvals. RERA cannot do much there.

As RERA we need to be vigilant that the developer is compliant in filing Quarterly Progress Reports (QPRs), withdrawing money only to the extent of the work that is going on, he is compliant with various requirements of the registration. So, I think once vigilance goes off from both these ends, things will improve. And secondly, which I feel very strongly is we need to put things out in simple language. Once you bring complicated language, people do not understand.

For example, the sale-deal of a flat, it can run into 100 or even 200 pages. How do you expect a common man with all his day-to-day work and responsibilities to read the 100-page sale deal written in strong legal language and understand it. So, we devised a model agreement.

But we realised that the agreements will deviate. No two agreements will be the same. If you deviate, please provide a deviation sheet. So that when a common person sees, he can easily differentiate between a model agreement and the deviation.

Home buyers often complain that RERA usually passes an order but it is not complied by the developers?

That is an issue. Till now we were just barking but now the time to bite has come and we have started biting. Once we issue an order the compliance of that goes down to the tehsildar. At times there are legal hurdles in ensuring the compliance of our orders.

However, we have recently hired a retired additional collector to coordinate with respective collectors offices to coordinate and ensure compliance. Now you can see progress. Especially in the last few months there is substantial progress.