Builders must keep word on assured returns: HRERA

Check on dubious real estate schemes

Judgment will help realise crores of rupees due against errant promoters, who have refrained from paying the assured returns promised to allottees

Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Gurugram, November 10

In a landmark judgment, the Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority, Gurugram, today held that builders and promoters were liable to pay the assured returns mentioned in a builder-buyer agreement.

Coming down hard on errant builders and promoters, the Bench headed by HRERA chairman KK Khandelwal, while deciding 26 similar cases, said a promoter couldn’t wriggle out of the promise of assured returns to an allottee merely by taking the plea that the assurance was made before the enforcement of RERA Act, 2016, or any other law for that matter.

The judgment will help realise crores of rupees due against errant promoters, who have mischievously refrained from paying the assured returns on the deposits collected from allottees by floating various assured return schemes.

Most of the cases taken up by the Bench involved a prominent developer, Vatika Limited.

This decision shall go a long way in curbing the malpractice of raising funds by floating dubious deposit schemes, the Bench said.

It said a large number of cases were being filed before the HRERA, Gurugram, wherein aggrieved allottees alleged that the promoter lured them to invest in its real estate project by promising a monthly return on the money deposited as consideration against the price for the unit.

The assured return schemes often appears lucrative to buyers as they are not only promised an assured rate of interest but also the possession of the property on the agreed date of completion.

By floating assured return schemes, promoters collect almost 100 per cent of the payment from the allottees at the onset. Falling victim to such schemes, buyers fail to get the assured returns as well as the property, and end up struggling to recover their money from the builders.

The Bench made it clear that in disputes pertaining to the assured return schemes, the allottee had a right to approach the authority for redressal of his grievance by way of filing a complaint.