Several suggestions received at the recently concluded National Rera Conclave held in Lucknow on how to make RERA more effective, avenues available for financing stuck projects and synergies that can be created between legal forums such as RERA, consumer courts and NCLT to avoid confusion, would be finalised by the end of the month.
"An action plan would be ready within a week and a decision would be taken by the end of the month to finalise these recommendations. We will be circulating these suggestions among members of the newly formed All India Forum for RERA Authorities that comprises chairmen of the regulatory body from across the country. We have called a meeting on November 29 to take a call on all the recommendations received at the conclave," Rajive Kumar, Chairman, UP RERA, told Moneycontrol.
Suggestions have been received from consumers, chiefs of financial institutions, real estate developers and other stakeholders. These have to do with enhancing the implementation of RERA orders, status of stakeholders such as authorities that are not yet covered under the Act and creating better synergies between different legal remedies available to homebuyers, he said.
In August this year, the Supreme Court had said that the RERA act, which regulates the real estate sector, should be read in harmony with the IBC amendments. RERA is not in derogation of any act, and in case of conflict between RERA and IBC, IBC prevails.
The consumers have the option of seeking remedy under any provision — the Consumer Protection Act, IBC or RERA, it had said.
“The RERA is to be read harmoniously with the Code, as amended by the Amendment Act. It is only in the event of conflict that the Code will prevail over the RERA. Remedies that are given to allottees of flats/apartments are therefore concurrent remedies, such allottees of flats/apartments being in a position to avail of remedies under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, RERA as well as the triggering of the Code,” the order had said.
Balwinder Kumar, Member, UP RERA, said that the NCR has an unsold inventory of 1.8 lakh unsold units from which almost Rs 30,000 crore could be realised in the future.
"We are working at a possible solution to help monetize the unsold inventory and utilise the proceeds to finish the stuck projects," he said.
For the uninitiated, after receiving the initial approvals for the construction activities, the promoters are required to approach various authorities and local government bodies for approvals, which are required in the later stage of the construction.
The approvals vary from commencement certificate for higher floors to electricity connection, to water connection to procuring occupancy certificate for a completed project. These approvals too, are difficult to be obtained in a timely manner which in turn adds to the time factor of money, on to the project, leading to increase in the project overall costs. Many a times, the building construction comes to a grinding halt as the approvals are not received. Issues like these, push the project deadlines beyond manageable limits, leading to unachievable tasks.
Another challenge is to do with implementing RERA orders. Currently, this forms the weakest link in RERA. The orders passed by RERA cannot be executed unless powers to ensure implementations are provided to the authority. RERA, as per the act, can take assistance from the collectors to recover any arrears which arise out of penalties, unpaid fees or any order passed by RERA which is converted into a recovery warrant.
When RERA passes any recovery warrant, the same is to be manually sent to the collector for execution. If the collectors are provided with an access to view these warrants on a real time basis, they can enforce them properly and in a timely manner. As RERA does not have any powers to provide directions to any department, it becomes difficult to ensure that proper steps are taken by the relevant department or authority in this regard.
It is imperative that RERA receives feedback from the collectors on the status of the warrant issued by them, well in time. An online interactive portal will no doubt provide this much needed link to both the RERA and the Collector’s office, the white paper on RERA and Government: Transforming Realty Through Synergies, released at the Conclave, said.
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