JOIN USHomebuyers seek home loan interest waiver
Homebuyers across the country have demanded the waiver of interest on their housing loans till the completion of housing projects for which the government has given extension under the force majeure clause.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, last week, announced six months extension to all the RERA registered residential projects that are due for completion. Many housing projects are delayed due to lockdown for the last two months.
“The interest part on the principal amount of the loan during this COVID-19 force majeure period should be waived. The homebuyers are now facing pay cuts, unsecured jobs and over and above the rent,” Srinivasan Shankar, National Secretary, Forum for People’s Collective Efforts (FPCE), a pan-India homebuyers forum said.
FPCE, in a dissent note sent to Hardeep Singh Puri, minister of state for housing, appealed that the government should acknowledge COVID-19 as a natural calamity under Force Majeure and extension of RERA registered projects, as per section 6 of the RERA Act applicable only for actual lockdown period, without leaving it to the adjudication or to the discretionary power of the authority as per Proviso of Section 6.
Force majeure benefit should be extended to homebuyers also, he said.
Earlier this week, the Karnataka RERA authority invoked ‘Force Majeure’ clause and extended by six months the period of validity of registration of projects which were due for expiry on or after March 15. KRERA will be issuing project registration certificates, with revised timelines for such projects, it said in its order dated May 19, 2020. With this, about 75 projects comprising around 2,000 residential units will get an extension in Bengaluru.
The FPCE has also demanded that the builders should bear the interest part till homebuyers get possession of flat, as it is not their fault. They are forced to pay both rent and EMI.
“As otherwise, if the project gets completed as per the RERA completion date, the financial impact on the homebuyer will be only EMI and not rent. Hence, the RERA authorities, while utilising their discretion to extend the project, they should direct the builders suo-motu to compensate the interest part of the EMI till possession of the flat,” Shankar said.