By Varun Singh

Maharashtra Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (MahaRERA) has been established to adjudicate and for speedy dispute redressal.

Section 31 of the Act, enables any aggrieved person to file a complaint with MahaRERA, for any violation or contravention of the provisions of the Act or the rules and regulations.

MahaRERA shall be guided by the principles of natural justice and subject to the other provisions of the Act and the rules made thereunder, the MahaRERA shall have powers to regulate its own procedure.

The authority noticed that the objective of the Act of having an adjudicating mechanism for speedy dispute redressal is not achieved in letter and spirit.

Another aspect the circular issued by the authority states, that there is another factor that retards/slows down the adjudication mechanism in speedy dispute redressal namely that documents on which parties rely upon/ place reliance in a complaint as filed is/are not uploaded/not made available to the adjudicating machinery.

Considering that Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to remain a major public health hazard it is necessary to reiterate the mode of hearing of Complaints.

In view of these aspects MahaRERA has laid down procedure in the matter of grant of adjournments when complaints are listed for hearings before the respective Bench of MahaRERA as well as in the matter of submission of documents on which parties rely upon/ place reliance in the complaints as filed and the mode of hearing of complaints:

Adjournments:
(a) No adjournment shall be granted more than two times to a Party.
(b) No adjournment shall be granted at the request of the party except where there is/ are compelling circumstances or where circumstances are beyond the control of the party.
(c) The fact that the legal practitioner is engaged in another court shall not be a ground for adjournment.
(d) Where the illness of a legal practitioner is put forward as a ground for
adjournment, no adjournment shall be granted unless the party applying for adjournment is able to satisfactorily explain that it could not have engaged another legal practitioner in time.
(e) Excuses such as (i) “l have been briefed in the matter recently/ yesterday
in the morning” or (ii) “I am not prepared/ready with the arguments in the
matter” or for such other reasons, shall be no grounds for adjournment.
(f) Where sufficient cause is not shown for grant of adjournment, hearing of the complaints shall be proceeded with.

Submission of Convenience Document set
(a) In addition to the Complainant and Respondent filing / uploading his/her complaint reply/written submission/ written arguments/rejoinders/
synopsis as the case may be and uploading the documents on which reliance is placed in the matter, a hard copy of a “Convenience Document” shall also be submitted. This would be a set consisting of not more than 20 Pages, ie only the relevant pages of the documents required / necessary for deciding the issues raised in the complaints along with the copy of the
complaint / reply / written submission / written arguments/rejoinders / synopsis shall be submitted at the head office of MahaRERA situated at 6th and 7th floor, House Fin Bhavan, Plot No. C-21, E-Block, Bandra- Kurla Complex, Bandra (East), Mumbai- 400051.
(b) The first document, in the “Convenience Document” set, shall be the
Vakalatnama or the Authority Letter indicating that the complainant has
authorized the person named in the said document to plead his/her case.
(c) The above shalt be applicable to all complaints ie old complaints filed as
well as new complaints when filed.
(d) Hard copies of the “Convenience Document” set shall be indexed and
paginated and submitted at the address given in 2(a), at least 1 week before the complaint is listed for hearing.
(e) The “Convenience Document” shall be referred to by the party in person, chartered accountant, company secretary, cost accountant, legal practitioner/ counsel while relying on documents, during arguments.
(f) The last two lines in the column “Description” at “Step 1” and “Step 2” under the column “Steps” at “Annexure A – Standard Operating Procedure for online hearing through video conferencing” in Circular No. 27/2020 dated June 12, 2020 shall be replaced with what is stated in Clause 2(a) above.

Mode of Hearing of Complaints:
(a) Hearing of Complaints shall continue online through video conferencing
(b) Only in cases where the respective bench of MahaRERA is of the opinion that in a given complaint, physical hearing is necessary for the purposes of deciding the said complaint then in that event of hearing of such complaint/s shall be taken up in physical hearing subject to all concerned ie. the parties appearing in person and / or the authorized representative representing the parties in the complaints following the Covid 19 norms as prescribed by Government of India/ State of Maharashtra.

Also Read: Next MahaRERA Date to be Announced in Open Court

The post This is how MahaRERA plans to deliver Justice fast appeared first on Square Feat India.

By Varun Singh

Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) till date has received a total of 15,239 complaints.

These complaints are against both registered and unregistered real estate projects.

MahaRERA was formed to bring in transparency in the real estate sector.

It started taking complaints of homebuyers against builders who defaulted on possession, or didn’t fulfill the promises made to homebuyers.

The remedy to these solutions were offered by asking the developer to pay interest to the homebuyer or by imposing other penalties.

However, of all the 15,239 complaints received by the authority only 9,841 has been resolved.

MahaRERA, even started taking complaints against the unregistered projects. Unregistered projects are those where developers who were meant to register their projects with the authority but failed to do so.

The authority received a total of 14,437 complaints against registered projects. Of this orders were passed in 9,067 cases.

MahaRERA received a total of 802 complaints against unregistered real estate projects and orders were passed in 774 complaints.

The authority also started a conciliation forum. Under this 755 Conciliationrequests were received with consent from both parties.

In 676 cases the conciliation was completed while the rest are pending.

Also Read: MahaRERA to Prioritize Complaints of People with Life-threatening Illness

The post Of 15239 Real Estate Complaints only these many Resolved appeared first on Square Feat India.

By Varun Singh

RERA in India has had its presence for 4 years now, and in this period a total of 63,583 projects have been registered across the country.

According to data collated by ANAROCK Property Consultants, as many as 65,539 cases have been disposed of by the respective state authorities as of 24 April 2021, according to data by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Out of this, nearly 40% cases (approx. 26,510 complaints) were resolved in Uttar Pradesh (UP RERA) alone, followed by Haryana with 13,269 cases and Maharashtra with 9,265 cases.

The three states cumulatively accounted for nearly 75% of the total disposed cases under RERA in the country.

Project and real estate agent registrations under RERA have also been growing steadily.

As of 24 April 2021, nearly 63,583 projects and 50,256 real estate agents have been registered under RERA across the country. Back in the corresponding period in 2019, about 40,155 projects and 29,208 real estate agents were registered.

This amounts to an increase of 58% and 72% respectively over the last two years.

Anuj Puri, Chairman – ANAROCK Property Consultants says, “One of RERA’s primary purposes is to address real estate consumers’ grievances. As such, the fact that the RERA authorities of various states and UTs have resolved over 65,539 consumer complaints in the last four years is noteworthy.”

“Uttar Pradesh (UP RERA) has resolved the highest number of cases, which is again notable considering how severely Noida and Greater Noida in UP had been impacted by shady dealings of unscrupulous players,” says Puri.

Maharashtra remains the frontrunner for project registrations – of all projects registered under RERA to date across 34 states/UTs, Maharashtra accounts for a 45% share.

Gujarat comes next with a 13% share, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka with about 6% share each, and Uttar Pradesh with a 5% share.

Four years after its implementation, RERA is coming closer to being the force it was envisioned to be – especially in disposing of consumer complaints across different states and UTs.

Rohit Poddar, Managing Director, Poddar Housing and Development Ltd & Joint Secretary, NAREDCO Maharashtra, says, “RERA has acted as a catalyst in remodeling the functionality of the real estate industry. One of RERA’s key attributes has been in developing reforms bringing meaningful interventions aimed at standardizing the codes of business and providing a complaint redressal platform for home buyers. The introduction of new reforms to protect homebuyers’ investments in the event of developer fraud has strengthened the home buyer’s confidence in the sector even further. RERA has effectively reduced builder and home buyer disputes over the last five years, and with digital advancement, RERA has simplified the due diligence process for homebuyers, making their home buying experience more seamless.”

Progress of RERA across India

• So far, 34 States/UTs have notified rules under RERA. The North Eastern State of Nagaland is still under process to notify its rules while West Bengal enacted its own legislation that was challenged by the MoHUA before the Supreme Court. However, in a major development, the apex court very recently struck down West Bengal Housing Industry Regulation Act, 2017 (WBHIRA) stating that it overlaps with RERA that was enacted a law in the Parliament.
• 30 States/UTs have already set up a Real Estate Regulatory Authority since implementation, and of this at least 5 are interim. Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Meghalaya and Sikkim have also notified their RERA rules but are yet to establish Authorities.
• 28 States/UTs have set up Real Estate Appellate Tribunal for disposing of consumer complaints, including 6 as interim. Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Sikkim are still underway to establish theirs.
• Regulatory authorities of 27 States/UTs have operationalized their websites under RERA provisions. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Manipur are under process to operationalize.

Also Read: UP RERA disposed 18k complaints, Maha 7.8k in 3 yrs

The post UP RERA Disposed Most Cases, MahaRERA Is Third appeared first on Square Feat India.