By: Ravi Sinha
Track2Realty Exclusive
Home buyers in Omaxe New Heights, Sector 78, Faridabad are a worried lot. Many of them have made the booking amount of around 2.5 lakhs and another installment of the same amount early last year, but there has hardly been any progress on the said project. With many of the NRIs investing in the said property, they are clueless as to where to go for redressal of their grievance.
The company is giving assurance to the buyers and each time they have approached Omaxe, a new date has been given to sort out their grievances and start the construction. However, documents in possession of Track2Realty tell a different story. An RTI filed by an aggrieved buyer in Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) office, Chandigarh shows that the revised building plan of the project, licence no. 248 of 2007 dated 26th October 2007 has not been approved till 13th April 2011. The revised building plans are pending due to non payment of EDC/IDC and non renewal of licence.
As a matter of fact, in a letter dated 28th January this year to M/s S N Realtors private Limited (Omaxe Group company that owns the project), Sunita Sethi, District Town Planner has asked the developer to deposit the dues along with the interest to get the licence of the colony renewed which expired on 25th October 2009. It says that only after the due is deposited, the Town Planning Department will examine and process the request for approval of the building plan.
In response to an email query sent to Omaxe by Track2Realty, the company wrote back asking for a week’s time to respond to it and then refused to comment. However, buyers who booked the flat over there after pre-approved home loans are in a fix as the banks have refused to release further installment in the absence of project taking off.
When a worried Siddharth Gautam (name changed), an NRI who booked a 3 BHK flat, approached the bank he was told that since it has been a long time the loans for this project has not been approved from banks, so the disbursement could not be started. Though the company admitted that the project has been delayed to a few buyers who approached the customer care department (documents in possession of Track2Realty), they kept extending the tentative dates for the projects take off.
Despite the fact that Omaxe has admitted delay in the project, they have not entertained any request for cancellation of the booked property or penalty for the harassment to the buyers. An email response by the company to a buyer admits, “At the outset we regret for the delay in our project and the construction work for the same would commence tentatively by another 2months.”
However, those who put pressure for settlement and foreclosure of their booking in the event of delay were slapped with the legal notice of not releasing further payment. The buyers say when the project is not approved, even their pre-approved loans are not being disbursed and they can not be held guilty for this. Omaxe, on the other hand, blames buyers who opted for construction linked payment plans and their banks didn’t release further payment in the event of delay. Their legal notice alleges violation in the terms and conditions of the agreement and the payment plan, and instead causing financial loss to the company resulting in the delay of the project.
