One year on, understaffed RERA solves just one case

According to the TNRERA website, since June 21, 2017, when the Tamil Nadu RERA body was formed, just one case had been resolved against Marg Properties Limited on May 23, 2018. While officials claim that a few more are in the pipeline, consumer activists and property buyers here lament that the authority is so short-staffed that nothing useful has come out of it. 

“When RERA was implemented, I thought I could finally make the builder accountable and approached the con-umer forum here,” he told DT Next. 

City-based lawyer and consumer activist Venkatraman Shankar, who took up his case, found that the Act did not cover the project.

Shankar said the consumer forum received, on an average, six cheating complaints a week. Most complaints failed to come under the ambit of RERA. The ones that did could not be taken up as the state regulator lacked the requisite manpower. “A majority of complaints we get are from consumers who cannot claim compensation under RERA as it came into effect only in 2017. So far, RERA implementation in TN is a mere eyewash,” Shankar said.

Even after the state notified the Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority (TNRERA) 2016 to prevent the buyers from being cheated by realtors, only a couple of cases have been reported and acted upon by TNRERA. While consumers dismiss it as yet another agency caught in bureaucratic tangle, builders call for a special agency similar to the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA).

According to RERA, both promoters and buyers are liable to pay penalty in case of default. Similarly, property dealers and brokers should register with TNRERA. The Act also mandates that all promoters who construct eight flats and occupy 500 sq.m. or more should register with RERA.

“However, the agency is weak and understaffed. The Housing and Urban Development officials have roped in re-tired CMDA and Urban Development officials as RERA members,” Shankar said.

As promoters constructing above eight flats were mandated to register with RERA, several builders now resorted to construct less than the number to circumvent RERA. “Victims of these builders remain uncovered under RERA,” the lawyer-activist said.

S Ramaprabhu, vice chairman of Builders Association of India’s Southern Centre said, “RERA paved way for all promoters getting registered. Before RERA, there were instances where buyers were by and large cheated.”

Ramaprabhu added that the government should form an exclusive team to monitor the entire process. “If people want to buy flats, they have to ask realtors about details like RERA registration number which most of them still don’t have” he added. When contacted, a senior official of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, under which TNRERA falls, denied charges of lack of awareness.