Maharashtra RERA has recently given a landmark judgment that every State RERA should follow. MahaRERA makes it mandatory for real estate developers to mention delivery date of amenities and occupation certificate. Track2Realty finds that amenities delivery has been a bone of contention between builders and home buyers across the country.
MahaRERA has said that now onwards real estate developers must specify the proposed date by which project amenities and Occupancy Certificate (OC) will be delivered.
It will now be mandatory for real estate developers to specify the proposed date of delivery of these facilities and amenities as well as the area they will cover in Annexure-I of the Agreement for Sale.
This provision, a long-pending demand of home buyers across the country, is non-negotiable and developers will not be at liberty to alter the same, the MahaRERA said in a statement on July 31.
MahaRERA has also made it mandatory for developers to provide details of the expected date of OC for the project, size of the facilities and amenities, whether it is a project being constructed by the developer or has been acquired, if the project is free of Floor Space Index or not as per the rules and regulations of the local planning bodies.
It is a known fact that developers offer attractive amenities to homebuyers at the time of booking an apartment, which is either not delivered or delivered at a much later date. Developers also at times offer the amenities which appear to be a mere miniature of what was promised to sell.
MahaRERA noted that in most cases, these facilities and amenities are not complete even after the buyers move into the project. It has therefore now made it mandatory for the developers to specify the date of delivery of these facilities in the Agreement for Sale’s Annexure-I.
The MahaRERA said that amenities for which the delivery timelines will have to be mentioned in the agreement for sale include:
Swimming pool
Tennis court
Badminton court
Theatres
Club house
Gymnasium
Table tennis area
Squash court
Chess area
Garden
Senior citizen zone
Jogging track
Juice bar
Children play area, among others
The move will make it binding on the developers not to violate delivery of the facilities and amenities as committed to the homebuyers, MahaRERA’s statement said.
Why such an order was needed? It is a known fact that developers take years in completing amenities. They also force buyers to keep maintenance with them in such circumstances. Often the developers demand extra money or else these promised amenities are abandoned.
The MahaRERA, in April 2024, had published a draft order on the issue and invited public suggestions and opinions. Thereafter, based on the feedback received, the MahaRERA has taken this decision.
Such problems are mostly faced in the township projects where amenities are delayed, and they offer amenities only after the last phase of completion. Even the smaller developers took advantage in the absence of a binding law.
Additionally, MahaRERA has mandated that developers provide a comprehensive detail of the facilities and amenities in Schedule-II of the Agreement for Sale.
It will also be mandatory for the developers to obtain consent of two-third of the residents if changes are about location and numbers of families and amenities. In other words, developers will not be able to make changes unilaterally, the MahaRERA said in a statement.
Ravi Sinha
Twitter: RaviTrack2Media
Ravi Sinha is a journalist with over two decades of cross-discipline media exposure. He is the CEO of real estate thinktank group Track2Realty. He has been writing extensively on the real estate sector for more than a decade now. Evaluation of real estate brand performance is his core domain expertise and he has immense insight into consumers’ psychograph. He has conceptualised Track2Realty BrandXReport as India’s 1st & only objective & non-paid brand rating journal that is industry-accepted benchmark of brand equity & ranking of the Indian real estate companies.
Track2Realty is an independent media group managed by a consortium of journalists. Starting as the first e-newspaper in the Indian real estate sector in 2011, the group has today evolved as a think-tank on the sector with specialized research reports and rating & ranking. We are editorially independent and free from commercial bias and/or influenced by investors or shareholders. Our editorial team has no clash of interest in practicing high quality journalism that is free, frank & fearless.
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