12 developers who printed advertisements of housing projects without MahaRERA number have been fined Rs 10,000, Rs 25,000, Rs 50,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh thus totaling a Rs 5.85 lakh.
The 12 developers include five from Nashik, four from Aurangabad, two from Pune and one from Mumbai.
According to RERA, any project (including flats) of more than 500 square meters or 8 flats is required to be registered with MahaRERA. And without MahaRERA registration number, no developer can do any kind of advertisement of the project, registration of houses in that project, sale.
However, it has come to MahaRERA’s notice that some developers ignore this rule and print advertisements without MahaRERA registration number. It was taken seriously by MahaRERA and started sending show cause notices. So far, MahaRERA has sent such notices to 54 projects in the state. These developers were given 7 days to present their case.
MahaRERA heard 15 of these projects in the first phase and took penal action against 12 projects. 11 of these developers were fined even though they had MahaRERA registration number but did not print it in the advertisement. One developer has been fined Rs 1.5 lakh, 7 developers Rs 50,000 each and 3 developers Rs 25,000 each.
One of these developers was fined Rs 10,000 for printing his registration number in very fine print. These developers have to pay the penalty amount within 15 days and those who do not pay, they will have to pay an extra 1 thousand rupees per day for delay. Moreover after 15 days they will not be able to avail the services of MahaRERA till they pay the fine.
3 of these developers requested to change the date of hearing due to some unavoidable reason and their request was accepted. Hearings of remaining developers are also proposed soon.
Henceforth apart from advertisements in newspapers, MahaRERA will also monitor the advertisements of housing projects in various social media and penal action will be taken against developers who advertise without registration number.
In order to ensure that the home buyers and the investment in the real estate sector as a whole are safe, the government has implemented the Real Estate Act and established the MahaRERA for proper regulation of this sector. MahaRERA takes care of many fundamentals on behalf of home buyers and other investors in the sector. But consumers should also be careful to invest only in MahaRERA registered projects, it has been appealed on behalf of MahaRERA .
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