Mumbai: Projects, wherein possession of apartments has been handed over to allottees but the Occupation Certificate (OC) has not been issued, are considered ongoing under the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (ReRa) Act, said lawyers appearing in ongoing ReRa cases in the Bombay high court.
Such projects should not be included under the ReRa as it will create chaos, as the number of such projects is in excess of 50,000 in Mumbai only, the lawyers said. They further say that as the government has provided an alternate for projects lacking OC in the form of deemed conveyance, cases should be dealt under the Maharashtra Ownership Flat Act (MOFA). Speaking about the sections that deal with ongoing projects wherein the promoter advertises, markets and sells apartments or plots, a member of Forum for People’s Collective Efforts (FPCE), a non-profit organisation representing homebuyers in the ReRa case in the high court, said that while the Act speaks about duties of promoters in ongoing projects prior to May 1, 2017, it does not talk about completed projects without OC.
“While section 2 and 11 of the Act indicates that such projects wherein possession is handed over but OC is not issued are incomplete projects and hence come under the purview of ReRa Act, it needs to be dealt separately, else there will be chaos and the ReRa will be inundated with such cases,” said the FPCE member.
Another lawyer, appearing for an intervenor, said that the MOFA was specifically for the purpose.
“The MOFA rules state that a competent authority has been appointed and empowered to pass necessary orders for directing the registrar to register the society to execute and register the conveyance deed in favour of the applicant/federation/society or submitting the declaration which were not carried out by the promoter in spite of making the provisions in the Act and the Rules,” said advocate Tanveer Nizam appearing on behalf of a redevelopment affected party at Jacob Circle in support of the ReRa Act.
