When buying an apartment...

Recently, a whole lot of flat owners in an apartment complex received summons from the local civil court, spreading panic among them. The summons just gave the names of the plaintiffs/original defendants as is the practice and no details were given except the date when the ‘proposed defendant’ has to be present before the court either personally or through an advocate. Naturally, the owner-residents approached the builder from whom they purchased the apartment/s seeking information. Strangely, the builder said that he too has received the summons. It was also revealed that the litigation has been initiated by the sisters of the land owners claiming their share in the property from the owners who entered into joint development agreement with the builder.

When the advocates of apartment owners collected the plaint from the court, it revealed the following:

The original land owner had 4-5 children, including 2-3 daughters.

The brothers partitioned the land among themselves ignoring the married sisters.

The sisters are the plaintiffs in the present case.

The plaintiffs impleaded only their brothers in the suit initially.

The builder and apartment owners were impleaded only subsequently when the case is coming up for arguments.

Whatever be the circumstances and situation, the apartment owners are unnecessarily dragged into a family land dispute for no fault of theirs. While, prima facie, there is no claim against them, they have to follow the course of the court proceedings, engage lawyer/s, incur legal expenses, and above all face hardship and harassment, and also undergo mental agony till the case is finally disposed of.

The legal position requiring to be submitted to the court can be:

When the apartment was purchased, there was no pending suit disputing the title of the land and there was no public notice of such a suit.

In many cases, the sale deeds were registered prior to the date of the suit.

The course of action is not primarily against the buyers of the apartments.

If at all, the plaintiffs have any plausible claim, the apartment owners are not responsible to it in any way.

The inclusion of the apartment owners as ‘proposed defendants’ now, may only be to pressurise the land owners and builders.

How to prevent or avoid such instances? For many years in the past, there used to be innumerable complaints from apartment buyers against promoters and builders, and the Real Estate Regulation Act, 2016, was passed by the government to protect the buyers. In the background of the present case, there is a need to include land dispute related issues also under the purview of the Act.

Flimsy land-related litigations may discourage prospective home/apartment buyers from going in for new purchases. Till the issue is sorted out by a universal legislation, it may do well for buyers to go in for only self-acquired land owned by promoters/builders solely, and projects involving joint family properties may have to be eschewed. Such a situation can negate the progress of the booming housing sector under the government’s flagship programme of Prime Minister’s Aawaz Yojana to provide housing for all by the year 2022.