CHANDIGARH: Sounding relief for allottees who have lost crores of rupees of their hard earned money due to false promises by realtors or builders, the Gurugram bench of Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (HRERA) has held that the developers are liable to pay the “assured return” as agreed upon as per the builderbuyer agreement.
In its judgment, the authority has held, “By taking sale consideration by way of advance, the builder promised certain amount by way of assured returns for a certain period, therefore on the failure on part of the builder to fulfil his commitment, the allottee has a right to approach the authority for redressal of his grievance by way of filing a complaint.”
While pronouncing the judgment, the Gurgaon bench of HRERA headed by its chairman K K Khandelwal has followed the precedent of the Bombay high court in the Neelkamal Realtors Suburbans case.
The authority has observed that Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, has no provision for re-writing of contractual obligations between the parties, therefore the promoters/developers/builders cannot be allowed to take a plea that there was no contractual obligation to pay the amount of assured returns to the allottees after coming into effect of the RERA Act, 2016, or that a new agreement is being executed with regard to that fact.
The HRERA has passed these orders while deciding a bunch of 26 such cases regarding payment of assured returns as promised by the promoters/developers/builders to the allottees at the time of agreement for sale for a real estate unit. The cases were largely related to a developer, Vatika Limited.
Promoters lure allottees with assured returns:
A large number of cases are being filed before the HRERA Gurgaon wherein the aggrieved allottees allege that the promoter had lured them to invest in its real estate project by promising a certain rate of monthly return on the sum deposited as consideration against the price for the unit. By floating assured return schemes, the promoters collect almost 100% payment from the allottees at the very onset. Several buyers of property have fallen victim to such schemes, and have failed to get the property, leave aside the assured returns and ended up struggling to recover their money from the developers.
