State has to adopt Centre’s housing Act in six months

As the Centre enforced its Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016, which came into effect from Sunday, the countdown for the state to appoint a housing regulatory authority for the state has begun.

With 69 out of the total 92 sections of the Act coming into effect, Section 84 under the Act states that rules have to be formulated by the state government within six months of the Act coming into effect.

The state government was previously mulling over to pass its Maharashtra Housing (Regulation and Development) Act, 2012 in order to curb the practices in the real estate sector. However, it has not been successful in implementing its own Act and now it has to adopt the Centre’s Act with the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation (HUPA) notifying its own Act, which asks every state to have its own set of regulations under the Centre’s Act with a deadline of six months.

“Looking at the geography of Mumbai and the kind of cheating cases by builders, the state government will send its own set of modifications to the Centre in the stipulated deadline of six months in order to adopt the Centre’s Act,” said Ravindra Waikar, minister of housing for state.

Further, after formulating the rules under the Centre’s Act, Section 20 of the Centre’s Act mandates every state government to establish an authority to be known as Real Estate Regulatory Authority for implementing the set of formulations of the state under the Centre’s Act under a period of one year from the date of the Centre’s Act coming into force.

Once the Real Estate Regulatory Authority is implemented, the developers will have to make an escrow account and deposit 80 per cent of the funds required to construct a proposed project and also includes bringing in transparency in terms of submitting the approval plans and architectural plans and also address all the grievances related to the developers cheating buyers in the transactions.

The Centre is expected to soon notify the remaining pending 22 sections. These sections mostly deal with the functions and duties of the promoters of the project, followed by duties and rights of the buyers and functions related to the approvals required prior to the registration of the real estate projects which will be covered under the Real Estate Regulatory Authority.