Maharashtra government to protect buyers, regulate real estate ads

In yet another buyer-friendly move, the state government is set to regulate advertisements in the real estate sector that could be swanky but misleading. Under the state’s housing regulator provisions, developers will be allowed to advertise their project in public, only after all the necessary approvals for the project to take off are in place, and subject to clearance from the state housing regulator.

“The state government plans to penalise the developers in case of advertisements having any false claims. The state housing regulatory body will be the quasi-judiciary authority which will have the authority to penalise the developers for false claims in their advertisements,” said a state housing ministry official.

The previous Congress-NCP government considered passing its Maharashtra Housing (Regulation and Development) Act, 2012 in order to curb illegal practices in the real estate sector. However, it could not successfully implement the same, and now every state has to adopt the Centre’s Real Estate Regulator Bill, which came into force on May 1, 2016 with the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation (HUPA) notifying it. The notification asks every state to have its own set of regulations under the Centre’s Act and has set a deadline of six months for the same.

The state government had, however, conveyed to the Centre a few months ago that the state government would send its own set of modifications to the Centre in the stipulated deadline of six months in order to adopt the Centre’s Act (RERA), which would reflect the state’s real estate market and the practices of the state developers that the Centre could not accommodate.

Further, the state government’s modification will also make it compulsory for developers to have clarity on the timelines for project delivery and their method of calculation of project prices so that a homebuyer has an exact understanding as to what he/she is paying and what he/she is getting in return.

“The state’s modification will be out for public objections and suggestions once the proposal is approved by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis,” added the state housing ministry official.

There needs to be regulation on the advertisement by the developers as there are times when the projects are advertised even before the project has obtained any permissions, a state housing ministry official said.

“In this scenario, there are buyers who already purchase considering what is promised in the advertisements and later after obtaining permissions there are chances of the developer not getting permissions for all that he/she promoted in advertisement,” the official further added.