Bengaluru flat buyers get rare relief under RERA's order

Five years after Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) came into existence, the full force of its orders do not see the light of the day as revenue officials have not been moving files unless the home buyers wage a struggle, as seen in the case of a recent seizure.

As per the law, RERA passes revenue recovery orders in cases where builders have defaulted. However, the enforcement has to be carried out by the Revenue Department under Section 190 of Land Revenue Act. Officials in RERA said they have close to 500 cases, more than half of which were older than three years.

"Tracking the status of the orders issued by the Authority is near impossible due to lack of transparency. We have been writing to the Revenue Department to open a portal to provide update on the status of each of the order passed by RERA. The matter has been escalated to the chief secretary. However, not much has changed," an official told DH.

In the instant case, documents from RERA show that Rs 4.6 crore had to be recovered from Sanchaya Land and Estate Pvt Ltd in 25 cases before the authority. However, the file didn't move for months after the order. Following persistent protests and petitions by The Greens Buyers Association, revenue officials in Anekal have seized 2 acre 9 gunta.

For the buyers, however, the action is too little and too late. K C Raghu of the Association said the parcel of the land seized makes up for recovery of the money spent by 25 buyers. He said the total land being developed by the builder was 17.5 acres. However, a part of the land was "recovered" by the revenue authorities who have claimed that it was public land under encroachment.

As per the submissions made before the RERA, the builder had assured handover of flats to the buyers by December 2014 with June 2015 as the final deadline (including 6 month grace period). "The project has come to a standstill since 2018. But we had to organise struggles at both RERA to get the recovery order. We fought for another year to make the revenue officials carry out RERA's orders," Raghu said.

The full scale of the project involves 1925 flats to be developed in two phases. It has been over six years since the deadline for 1275 flats expired. However, buyers see no light at the end of the tunnnel. "Only 60 per cent of the work has been completed in 1275 flats. In the remaining less than 10 per cent work has been done. I am one of the more than 500 buyers. I don't know how the remaining buyers can get justice," the associations said.

A senior official in the Revenue Department said enforcing RERA orders require time and constant followups. "Issuing notice and seizure of the land involves legal procedure. There is no shortcut. The pandemic has delayed the work. Enforcement will be expedited in the coming days," he said.