INFORMATION GAP

Only if complete information is available regarding the legal, financial and technical matters pertaining to the residential project can a customer make an informed choice. “Unfortunately, a regulation in this direction is conspicuous by its absence. Neither are the developers statutorily required to make specific and true disclosures, nor are the customers aware of the enquiries they should make before taking a decision. The result: quite often the developer has not even bought the land for the project. All he offers is glib promises, and based on them customers risk their life’s hard-earned savings,” says Rao.

Earlier, in a bid to protect property buyers, the Supreme Court of India had asked the Central and state governments and the Union law ministry to come up with guidelines on mass media advertisements by real-estate operators and builders. However, no law has been framed in this regard yet.

BUYERS WISING UP TO IT

Some degree of awareness is beginning to permeate into the sector. Recently, buyers have formed groups and have successfully presented and obtained remedy for their grievances from some of the country’s leading developers. Sanjay Dutt, CEO-Business at Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, says, “While the need for greater clarity and transparency remains high, it cannot be denied that a historically unorganised market culture is now beginning to give way to correct practices. While there doubtlessly remains an unorganised segment of players catering to under-informed buyers, the interrupted boom has already brought about higher levels of accountability. The reason for the slowdown in demand in the recent past is that most buyers today know what they have the right to expect from a developer by way of true value, disclosure and accountability. This is a direct result of the increasing corporatisation of the Indian real estate.”

... contd.