INDIA. Mumbai: The registration of nearly 141 housing projects is slated to be revoked by the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) on November 10 for non-compliance of formalities, including uploading of Forms 1, 2, and 3 on the Maharera website.
Most of these projects were registered in January of this year, and developers were asked to comply with the formalities from time to time. They were required to submit nine forms for three quarters (January-February-March), (April-May-June), and (July-August-September), giving details of the flats booked, funds received, and expenditures incurred.
The developers had time until April 20 to upload details of their projects on MahaRERA’s website. However, many developers did not comply. Hence, notices were issued to all of them, followed by a suspension of registration and a levy of Rs 50,000 as per the provisions of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016.
Even though the defaulting developers pay the penalty, their registrations will be revoked, and fresh registration will be allowed only after the submission of documents afresh, MahaRERA spokesman Ram Dotonde said.
The registrations of 363 projects were suspended in the third week of September for non-compliance. Of these, 222 projects paid the penalty and requested MahaRERA to lift the suspension. But the remaining developers did not respond. There are discrepancies even in the information furnished by those who complied with the formalities. Now they have been advised to rectify the errors.
The MahaRERA introduced the Financial Quarter-Based Project Progress Reporting System (FQBPRS) in January this year to monitor the progress of the projects effectively. This action aligns with regulations aiming for transparency and consumer protection.
In cases of failure to comply with formalities, the bank accounts of non-compliant projects are frozen, and sales activities are halted. No new transactions are registered until compliance is ensured. The sale, marketing, and advertising of the projects are banned. The deputy registrar of cooperative societies is instructed not to register the Agreements for Sale of the houses of the projects whose registrations have been suspended.
Under the MahaRERA Act, developers are required to furnish project details in Forms 1, 2, and 3 every quarter and in Form 05 annually. In view of the reluctance of most of the developers, the notices were served from May 17 onwards for 19,000 projects registered earlier. Then attention was focused on the projects registered in January of this year, when the FQBPRS was introduced. All these measures are being taken to ensure the safety of the money invested by the flat buyers and to ensure that they are given possession of flats at the stipulated date, Ajoy Mehta, Chairman, MahaRERA, said in a statement.
