Flat out frustrated: Homebuyers tackle delays, legal hurdles

Bengaluru: Over the last decade, Bengaluru has been growing vertically with a number of apartments mushrooming in the city. The data from the Karnataka Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) shows that over 3,000 projects have been registered in the Bengaluru Urban district in just the last seven years and the majority of them are apartment complexes.

The numerous election campaigns centered around apartment complexes by representatives of every political party during the recent Lok Sabha elections only showed that a sizeable population of the city now lives in the apartments. While affordability plays a big role in choosing to live in apartment complexes, increasing amenities and safety have also pushed many homebuyers to opt for apartments as compared to individual houses. 

However, apartment dwellers and homebuyers continue to face a number of problems every day. From delays in providing possession of flats to a lack of legal process to ensuring they have rights over the land, those buying apartments are facing a host of issues. 

Explaining the numerous problems faced by homebuyers, M S Shankar, General Secretary, Forum for People’s Collective Efforts (previously known as ‘Fight for RERA’), said that the problems start right at the beginning even before taking possession of the flats booked by the buyers, many of whom have had to wait for years together to just get possession of their flat, he said. 

“There have been numerous instances where the builders and promoters delay the project indefinitely, leaving the buyers in a fix. Though the Real Estate Regulation and Development (RERA) Act, 2016 allows for a one-year extension of the project, many projects have been given an extension for over three years even without awarding compensation to the buyers. The buyers’ rights need to be acknowledged,” Shankar said. 

That apart, the government revenue system and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) are still not updated to reflect the ownership of the flat owners, pointed out Dhananjaya Padmanabhachar from the Karnataka Home Buyers Forum, a collective of apartment owners’ associations. 

“The promoters mention the undivided share of land in the sale deed. However, this is not reflected in the land khata which will continue to be in the promoter’s name. The BBMP issues khathas for flats separately to collect the property tax but that does not reflect in the land khata. In the long run, when the apartment complex is either demolished or acquired for government projects, there is a legal problem with the ownership. There have been instances when the promoter’s family members claim right over the land, putting the flat owners in legal trouble,” he explained.

Form an association, says RERA

To solve this problem, RERA suggested that the flat owners form an association and the land title be transferred to the association. However, so far the government has not laid out the process for registering these associations and there is confusion among the apartment dwellers if the association has to be registered under The Karnataka Societies Registration Act, 1960 (KSRA), The Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act, 1959 (KCSA), or The Companies Act, 2013 (CA). 

Given that the number of apartments is only increasing, which, in turn, is increasing the density of the population in an area, there is a need to focus on public infrastructure to meet their needs. For instance, apartment complexes in the city were one of the most hit owing to the recent water crisis. While this was mostly in the areas where there was a lack of Cauvery water supply, this was also attributed to the large number of apartment complexes in these areas. “Clearly, Mahadevapura was the worst hit owing to the lack of Cauvery water supply. However, we also have to consider that the problem was bigger since the majority of the borewells in this area had dried up and this was because of the dramatic growth in apartments. As more and more people came to live in this part of the city, owing to the large apartment complexes, there was overexploitation of groundwater leading to a crisis. This could be addressed better if the growth was anticipated and the infrastructure was planned,” said Abhay Kumar, a resident of Mahadevapura. 

Stressing the need to anticipate the growth and plan infrastructure, Vikram Rai from the Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF) said that both the government and developers need to take the lead. 

“Since apartments increase the population density of the area, it is important that accessibility, traffic issues, and many other concerns are addressed. The rapid growth should be accompanied by infrastructure planning. Otherwise, the problems are inevitable,” he said.