The Gurugram Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) court has slapped a fine of over Rs 6 lakh on Vatika Limited for violating advance payment as well as buyer-builder agreement norms.
The RERA court, one of the two in Haryana that look into real estate disputes, gave the order on the complaint of five buyers who said they paid for commercial units in a Vatika project but were moved to another without their consent.
The Gurugram-based Vatika Limited accepted full payment from the buyers without executing the builder-buyer agreement (BBA), the RERA court said in an April 5 order, which was made available on its website on April 15.
A promoter can’t accept more than 10 percent of the total cost of an apartment, plot, or building as advance payment from a buyer without a written agreement, the RERA act says. The agreement has to be registered as well. Something the real estate company didn’t do.
Vatika Limited didn’t respond to Moneycontrol’s queries immediately. The copy will be updated when the response comes in.
The complaints moved the authority in October 2022, saying they booked commercial units Vatika India Next project in Sector 82 of Gurugram in 2018 and paid the full amount. They didn’t sign a builder-buyer agreement.
In 2019, Vatika transferred their units “without their consent” to Vatika One on One in Sector 16, 10 km away from the original site, and also reduced the size to 500 square feet from the original 1,000 sq ft.
Vatika Limited took 100 percent of the consideration without executing the BBA in violation of the RERA Act, 2016, it said.
“… hereby imposes a penalty of Rs 1,00,000 in each complaint and further directs the promoter to execute the registered buyer’s agreement as per the model agreement provided in the Real Estate Regulation and Development Rules 2017 within 30 days from the order failing which the Authority shall be bound to invoke penal action under Section 63,” the order said.
The authority also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 for each complaint and said the complainants have to be paid within 30 days from the date of the order.
Vatika Limited was also asked to pay interest for every month of delay from the due date of possession till a valid offer of possession.
"Since there was no BBA signed, there was no definite written date of possession but the authority has taken into consideration 2023 as the year of possession considering 2019 as the booking year, when our units were transferred to the other project," Gaurav Rawat, the legal counsel for the allottees told Moneycontrol.
The cumulative penalty stands at Rs 6.25 lakh, which includes Rs 5 lakh fine and other payments of Rs 1.25 lakh.
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