MahaRERA to issue notices to 18,000 real estate projects for failing to upload info

Representational image.

The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority will issue notices to more than over 18,000 real estate projects in Maharashtra over the developers' failure to upload details like financial disclosures, CA certificates and architect certifications on its website, MahaRERA officials have told Moneycontrol.

Notices had already been issued to 2,100 projects, officials said, adding those were issued to have all the works RERA complied.

"We see in advertisements where developers claim we are RERA registered, but it does not stop there. If you are RERA registered, you need to do RERA compliance too. This compliance entails uploading financial accounts, CA certificates, project work status, etc from time to time on the website of MahaRERA," one of the officials said on condition of anonymity.

Also read: MC Explains | The difference between RERA-registered, 'approved' and compliant projects: 

2,100 notices issued till now:

According to MahaRERA officials, it is giving 30 days to the developers to reply to the notices and upload information in the public domain. Failing this, penal action could be taken, they said. The priority was to first issue notices to everyone.

The 18,000 projects are a mix of old and newly registered projects as well as lapsed projects. "We are issuing notices to everyone irrespectively. Initially, we started with issuing 50 notices on a daily basis that went up to 100 and on January 10, we issued 1,000 notices," the official said. They were looking to complete the exercise over in the next two weeks.

What are the violations?

According to the RERA Act, every developer is required to keep 70 percent of the money received from customers by opening a separate account as per the RERA registration number.

When the money is withdrawn, at each stage of construction, a certificate from the project engineer, architect and chartered accountant on the percentage of project completion, quality, and unrealised cost must be submitted to the bank. A quarterly inventory of flats and plots sold in the project has to be posted on the website.

It is also mandatory for every developer to have the project account audited every six months and six months after the end of each year.

MahaRERA, however, found that in more than 18,000 projects this was not done. "It is possible that they are doing the paperwork, but not uploading on the website. Our purpose is to have all the information in the public domain so homebuyers are well informed," the official quoted above said.

What action can be taken?

According to MahaRERA officials, they have started issuing notices to developers and expect them to comply. If they don't, they will be liable to pay the fine which will be calculated based on the project cost.

How many registrations?

Ever since MahaRERA came into existence in May 2017, more than 36,000 projects have been registered with it. Of these, more than 4,500 projects registration has lapsed and close to 10,000 projects have been completed.