Rera Ridden With Gaps A Decade After Rollout

Rera was introduced to fix long-standing issues in the real estate sector, but it has fallen short on many counts. Here's how homebuyers can make the most of Rera and the recourses they can pursue outside of Rera

- Sanjeev Sinha

Nearly a decade after its rollout, the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (Rera) has failed to meet the expectations of homebuyers, thanks to procedural gaps, weak enforcement, and lack of legal preparedness. Legal experts say Rera was introduced to be a gamechanger for homebuyers, mandating builder disclosures, escrow accounts and 60-day dispute resolution in order to fix long-standing issues in real estate, such as delayed possession, misuse of buyers' money, and lack of transparency, but it has fallen short on many counts.

Official data shows over 125,000 complaints against builders have been resolved and 130,000 real estate projects have been registered under Rera as on July 1, 2024, according to the Economic Survey 2023-24. "Many buyers, however, feel shortchanged. Deep bottlenecks in enforcement and new challenges have eroded confidence," says Soumya Banerjee, partner, AQUILAW, a law firm.

As projects get larger, agreements more complex, and delays more nuanced, Rera is hitting several roadblocks. We list these, the way forward for this authority, and what you can do in this scenario.

THE GAPS

No Guarantee Of Timely Possession: Rera registration is a pre-condition for developers to market or sell a project. This triggers disclosure about the builder, escrow accounts, and other aspects.

However, these details cannot guarantee timely possession.

"Rera obliges promoters to adhere to declared timelines and imposes interest/compensation for delay with buyers entitled to interest/refund from the committed possession date if the developer defaults. But delivery risk remains. So, Rera registration should be treated as necessary, but not sufficient for timely possession," says Manmeet Kaur, partner, Karanjawala & Co., a dispute resolution firm.