Stating that the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, has not been able to achieve its objectives so far, a forum representing homebuyers recently asked the Union Consumer Affairs Ministry to issue real estate sector-specific guidelines to safeguard consumers.
The Forum for People’s Collective Efforts wrote to the Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare earlier this month seeking the Ministry’s intervention, given that as per government’s own reply to Lok Sabha on August 7, around 50,000 complaints pertaining to real estate were pending with consumer forums as on July 31.
The forum noted that though RERA is meant to regulate the sector, it was “sorry to say that RERA has in the last seven years, since it became fully functional, not been able to achieve its desired objectives”.
The president of FPCE and a member of government’s Central Advisory Council under the Act, Abhay Upadhyay told The Indian Express that they decided to approach Consumer Affairs Ministry as many consumers were approaching consumer forums, rather than the RERA in their states.
“Therefore it’s necessary on the part of the Consumer Affairs Ministry to protect the interest of the consumers as their life savings is at stake which is much higher stake than the consumers of any other sector,” he said.
He said though Section 71 of the RERA Act gives consumers the option to withdraw pending complaints from consumer forums and then approach RERAs, but many have chosen not to. “This itself is testimony of the fact that RERA has not been able to achieve its desired objectives. It’s high time that Consumer Affairs Ministry intervenes by coming out with sector specific guidelines to protect interest of consumers of real estate sector as malpractices prevalent in the sector are in blatant violation of Consumer Protection Act, 2019,” he said.
In the letter written by Upadhyay on October 8, the FCPE raised issues of misleading advertisements, unfair contracts and trade practices. “To save homebuyers from disproportionate demand vis a vis work completed, a clear guideline is needed from your Ministry…” it said.
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