RERA says, “The allottee shall have the right to cancel/withdraw his allotment in the project as provided in the Act: Provided that where the allottee proposes to cancel/withdraw from the project without any fault of the promoter, the promoter herein is entitled to forfeit the booking amount paid for the allotment. The balance amount of money paid by the allottee shall be returned by the promoter to the allottee within 45 days of such cancellation.”
This means, homebuyers can actually exit from realty deals whenever they want. The new Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA) specifies that home-buyers can actually cancel allotment of apartments at any development stage, even if there’s no trickery from the builders’ end. Similarly the builder will have to return the amount taken earlier from the consumers within 45 days time limit, after deducting the booking charge.
Anand Mathur, who chose a particular property from a leading property portal in Kolkata and already had paid the booking amount in 2016, has decided to quit the deal for personal monetary loss. Now, the builder is not ready to return the same. A year back, either homebuyers were never returned their paid amount or they had to be on hold since the project wouldn’t get sold to someone else. Again, if the developer crossed the timeline of the scheduled possession time, he has to refund the entire amount along with a surcharge of interest within 45 days.
Considered reasons under buyers can cancel the booking?
- Family emergency or dissatisfying market speculation can be the reason for this exit.
- Changing of mind/ disliking the project any long can also be a cause of get off. In that case, developer can offer alternative site to choose from.
Under RERA ambit, builders are bound by the law that they have to return the amount within 45 days time period.
RERA is being addressed as anti-builder statue. Builders think that most of the rules of RERA are bigotry. RERA has no answer to some alarming questions, which is- if a buyer books multiple units at a same point of time and pays installment for only one, how will the builder return the booking amount within the decided time period, after chucking off the booking amount is rather impractical, because a chunk of the collected amount has taken up for different project development or land purchase.
This is complete injustice to the builders, despite white-hat practice an allottee can anytime cancels the booking and namely ask for returning the amount within 45 days, whereas there is no way a builder can withdraw money from the escrow account.
Mr. Mahesh Somani, the RERA expert of West Bengal chapter says, “Builders are finally bound by the central norms. It’s the previous cutting the corners acts of the developers that has mired that entire industry. RERA will definitely provide equal justice to the both buyers and builders, by clearing up every ill-defined operation.”
_LNN (Liyans News Network)