Mumbai: In a huge relief for two home buyers, the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) directed the developer to prepone the date of possession from 2022 to 2020 and pay interest for delayed possession. The RERA bench acted on a complaint filed by two home buyers regarding delayed possession and unreasonable revised possession date mentioned on the website.
The complainants —Ramesh Premaney and Gorden Jagwani — had purchased flats in the developer Anil Kursija’s project named ‘Trinity Oasis’ which is situated at G.B Road in Thane. They signed a registered agreement for sale in 2014. “We paid substantial amount towards the consideration of the apartments and that the developer was to handover possession of the said apartments by December 2014,” said Premaney. Hence, the complainants prayed before the authority that the interest as per provision of section 18 of the Real Estate Act of 2016 and handover possession of the said apartments at the earliest. The representative of the developer Advocate Swapnali Bamle said that the developer had paid stamp duty and registration charges for said agreement and said that he was willing to return amount paid by them.
The complainants said they were willing to make the balance payments for the said apartments as agreed between the parties. They also submitted that they were interested in having the project completed and hence they would not insist on developer paying interest to them for delayed possession. The RERA bench found that the developer had put the revised proposed date of completion of project as July 2022, which is an unreasonable time period for completion of the project.
As per the provisions of the rule 4 of the Maharashtra Real Estate (Regulation and Development) (Registration of Real Estate Projects, Registration of Real Estate Agents, Rates of Interest and Disclosures on website) Rules 2017, the revised date of possession for an ongoing project has to be commensurate with the extent of balance development.
The bench, thereby, directed the developer to handover the possession of the said apartments with Occupancy Certificate to the complainant before the period of May 31 2020, failing which the developer would be liable to pay interest to the complainant from June 1, 2020 till the actual date of possession.
“The said interest shall be at the rate as prescribed under Rule 18 of the Maharashtra Real Estate (Regulation and Development) (Registration of Real Estate Projects, Registration of Real Estate Agents, Rate of Interest and Disclosures on Website) Rules of 2017,” stated the order. The bench also stated that the complainants would be at liberty to demand interest at an appropriate stage as per the provisions of section 18 of the Real Estate Act, 2016 and the rules made thereunder.