The newly appointed Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, has been appealed by the homebuyers in NCR and other regions of Uttar Pradesh to rescind the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) rules made by the state. They want new rules to be made to complement the rules made by the central government.

On one hand, Noida Extension Flat Owners Welfare Association (NEFOWA) has written a letter to the CM, majorly highlighting the demands for RERA. On the other hand one more association by the name Fight for RERA had tweeted to the CM and is planning to send a letter to him to update him about the situation.

NEFOWA and Fight for RERA demand that the rules of RERA should not be weakened and the authority should be regular and transparent.

Rescinding the rules will give a hope to homebuyers all over to India and at the same time will also retain the trust of citizens in the government and the Prime Minister.

Along with the demand of notifying fresh rules, NEFOWA has also demanded an audit by Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), of Noida and Greater Noida Authorities. It also wants unethical officials to be investigated thoroughly by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). In fact, it wants all the officials of Noida and Greater Noida Authorities, be it junior or senior, to be terminated as it feels they have always been partial towards the builders.

NEFOWA and Fight for RERA requested the CM to give orders to the builders to execute construction, strictly follow the UP Apartment Act and pay penalty for the late delivery to homebuyers.

Uttar Pradesh was one of the first states to make the RERA rules, but soon it weakened the effect giving provisions to certain kinds of projects and builders taking undue advantage of those provisions.

The supply of retails space is witnessing scarcity for the first time in India’s history as 15 malls shut themselves down. The main reasons behind the scenario are the closing down of the unsuccessful malls and restricted fresh supply. Five malls were shut down, while ten others modified themselves for various other purposes like co-working spaces for offices, hospitals, educational and coaching institutes etc. This has resulted in the removal of around 3.5 million square feet from the operational stock of retail spaces.

In 2016, the net total retail space in India was 2.7 million square feet in which Delhi-NCR had the highest of 1 million square feet.

With the completion of 13 malls, 15 got removed from the stock. The shutting down of malls across the country created an imbalance with the supply side being on the negative end.

According to a source, withdrawal of malls had taken place even in early years but the number this time the number of withdrawn malls is quite high as compared with the previous withdrawals. This has happened mainly due to the constant bipolar contradictions in the retail market which have started to reach the end. And because of this, in the next few years, more malls will witness the same situation.

While few malls have continued to be really successful in their field in terms of sells and performance, various low-budget malls are struggling and limping for a long time for some or the other reasons, specifically in the off late times. It was quite certain as the people’s expectation, and malls’ locations and architecture are constantly evolving

The concept of malls in India has been changing over the years with malls being a complete experience for an individual in the current era. And therefore, shoppers do not want to waste their time in an average mall leading to retailers also avoiding the same. A mall becomes successful with having a perfect combination of all kinds of tenants and necessarily having a few from entertainment and Food and Beverages (F&B) section. Malls which are lacking such tenants are floundering to sustain in the market which will get even tougher in the future. Retailers are also attracted to malls which fulfill the concept of mixed-use.

Another difficult challenge faced by the malls is the existence of online retailers. To overcome this challenge, constant evaluation has to be done to make new strategies and to come out with a fresh version of themselves in regular intervals.

Residents of Express Garden housing society in Indirapuram are bothered regarding the legality of the ownership of the flats. This is happening because the list which has been uploaded by Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) on its website does not carry the details of their apartments.

The residents are anxious thinking about the future of their residential properties pertaining to the exclusion of these flats in the list by GDA. They are scared in respect of the authenticity of their ownership will be interrogated. The main reason of this problem is the division of larger flats into smaller flats by the builder.

Although, GDA has announced that the residents of Express Garden should not be scared of legality issues regarding the ownership as the builder is at fault, for the non-inclusion of flats in the list uploaded on the GDA website.

The fact of not being listed in the GDA website was restricting the elections of the RWA society. The guidelines of the UP Apartment Act say that the resident votes will be based on the area of the flats. This provision gives advantage to bigger flats to have more votes. The basis on which the elections were held till 2013 was one vote per flat.

According to the sources, the problem is not the illegal building of the flats. The problem lies in the fact of splitting the bigger flats into smaller ones and selling them individually.

Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has plans to reallot those flats to the residents of Kathputli Colony, which were returned in the 2014 housing scheme by the allottees. During the settlement of the slum, the residents were ejected, but now houses will be provided to them in Narela or Rohini. DDA officials along with slum-dwellers had visited sectors of Rohini in this regard.

However, the people who are already living in that area are reluctant towards the decision as they feel the value of their property will decrease. They will be writing to M Venkaiah Naidu, the Union Minister, denying their consent.

The proposal has already been approved by the authority and is being taken serious consideration due to the increasing number of beneficiaries in the Kathputli Colony Redevelopment Scheme. DDA plan for the slum-dwellers, however, faced opposition from the slum-dwellers when the entire situation of ejection was taking place. Later the DDA accepted their plea to extend the cut-off date for beneficiary applications submission.

Homes for 2641 families had to be constructed, as says a sources. A few more homes are expected to be constructed by developer for around 200 families.

The residents are not at all happy as they feel deceived by the government. The flats which they had bought for Rs.15-17 lakhs will be sold to the slum-dwellers at just Rs.1.5 lakh. This might have a harsh impact on the value of their properties.

The residents have been battling for basic needs like water, lights etc. for a long time.

DDA, in a meanwhile, is trying to assure that the plan will be of interest to both– the slum dwellers as well as the residents.

The slum-dwellers will be provided with a choice to shift. It will be done on a priority basis with first preference being given to the 527 families who were shifted to transit camps during the eviction drive, followed by the 750 families who had recently shifted and others will subsequently follow.

Affordable housing is going through great proliferation. Even if we look at only the Delhi-NCR region, more than one lakh houses in the affordable housing segment will be built in the coming years. Builders are sure of a boom in demand owing to the amendments made by the government in the 2017 Budget.

Raheja Developers, Supertech, Signature Global, BDI, Tulip, Gaursons and many more have plans of launching new residential projects in Delhi-NCR in the category of affordable homes.
Supertech has plans of launching 40,000 units of affordable housing in Delhi-NCR, with about 25000 units being completed by 2020.

Another big realty name in the affordable housing segment, Signature Global, is likely to launch 30000 units in various residential projects in Delhi-NCR in the coming one year. 7500 apartments have already been launched by Signature Global.

Raheja Developers and Gaursons both, have plans of launching 10000 units in residential projects in the coming years.

Many other realty firms have also started to switch from current residential projects to affordable housing ones by confining the unit size at 60 square meters, in Gurgaon, Greater Noida, Yamuna Expressway, Tronica City, Raj Nagar Extension, Bhiwadi and Daruhera. The range of these apartments will be from Rs.15 lakhs to Rs.35 lakhs which will be decided upon the area of the apartment.

The different measures taken by the government like the extension of the tax benefit under section 80IB and giving infrastructure status to affordable housing segment would encourage buyers to keep very prices at a very competitive level.

The Labour Department of Gautam Budh Nagar has announced that many big realtors have been dodging the labour taxes in NCR – Greater Noida, Noida and Yamuna Expressway. The Labour Department is still waiting to claim labour taxes of around Rs.50 crore from realtors who are involved in huge realty projects.

As an order from the central government, the Labour Department of Uttar Pradesh had started to levy labour taxes since 2009. These taxes help the government in looking after the welfare of labours by funding and executing schemes, specifically meant for them.

Any realtor (or even any individual for that matter), who spends more than Rs.10 Lakhs on construction of any building, will obligatorily have to pay one percent of the total cost of construction as labour tax to the labour department.

The Labour Department will be sending notices to the realtors who are at default to claim dues and this recovered money can be used for the welfare of labours’ families. The E-way authorities have initiated the system of issuing Building Occupancy Certificates to realtors.

This is done in order to ensure that the realtors dutifully pay the taxes as only those realtors who clear their due of taxes will be eligible for the certificate.

The main reason for so many realtors to be at default is the downfall in the real estate market. The Labour Department has been able to collect Rs.733 crore between the period of February 2009 and February 2017.

Gautam Budh Nagar district is the highest collector of labour tax in the entire state, owing to the escalation in the housing sector. But, only 10 percent of the amount of Rs733 crore is actually spent on the welfare of construction labourers.

The registered number of construction workers is 135355 comprising 2638 construction sites. Unfortunately, the number of unregistered workers is around 2-3 lakhs and hence they are not able to exercise the welfare schemes meant for them. The sad part is these unregistered workers have no idea about the schemes that are made for them and even the fact that getting registered is important to use the benefits of these schemes.

Most of the construction labourers are from West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar, who work in Greater Noida and Noida and go back to their hometowns without any idea of the importance of getting themselves registered. And consequently, they are unable to avail the benefits of the government’s labour oriented welfare schemes.

Along with the decision of building a new campus for Law Faculty in Dwarka, Delhi University has also decided to purchase DDA apartments. These DDA flats which will cost 150 crores will be converted into hostels and staff quarters for students and staff members respectively.

These proposals have been approved by the Executive Council which happens to be the highest and most important decision making body of Delhi University. According to the sources, the administration had set up a committee on 25th February 2017, to make some appropriate changes to the proposal of purchasing unsold DDA properties in Dwarka. This committee had been set up to not let the planned grant of Rs.150 crores to expire.

There are still some procedures to be followed for getting the approval of DDA flats for Delhi University Hostels. Most importantly, is still has to go through the Finance Committee. The responsibility of purchasing is under the Union Government and the planned grant.

This expected new colony of the university will have hostels for students as well as the staff members. And the best part is that the land near this colony also belongs to Delhi University, which will be the location for the new campus for Law Faculty.

The Executive Council also had few teachers’ representatives who have demanded the dissolution of the committee to contemplate on the issue of granting autonomy to the constituent colleges of the university. According to them, such panels have no relevance in terms of statutory authorisation.

As says the source, this “autonomous colleges scheme” is merely a way of privatising and commercialising education in the Delhi University. The university is pushing this issue due to the orders from the central government but the implementation of the scheme should completely be avoided.

Developers have practically forced over 2000 families to quickly shift into the new residential projects in greater Noida West and Noida. The reason behind this is that these housing units have been granted the certificates of ‘partial’ completion. ‘Partial’ completion certificates give the advantage to builders to deliver the possession to homebuyers. These kinds of possessions are granted for fitouts, which means that the homebuyers can continue the interior work, inspite of the missing basic infrastructure. The delivery of housing units in this way suggests that the developers will not be liable to pay the penalty to the homebuyers for delay in delivery, which was mandated by Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA).

The concept of ‘partial’ completion certificate was initiated in the UP Apartment Act and is granted to developers to ease the completion of towers on a one-after-one basis. Homebuyers who shift before completion will not be liable to receive compensation for delay in delivery.

Earlier, the concept of part completion was a way to rescue homebuyers who found themselves stuck after investing in incomplete large housing projects. But now, this concept is being used negatively by a few developers who get partial completion certificate for selected towers and not the certificate for ‘total’ completion. ‘Total’ completion certificate requires a scrutiny in the previous towers by the inspectors before they provide the final approval.

Living condition

According to the rules by the Central Government under the RERA, the apartment being in a proper living condition, which means complete in all aspects, would lead to “ready to move in possession”.

As the UP Apartment Act says, ongoing projects are unfinished projects without completion certificates. The excluded projects in this regard are –

The ones which have completed all their development work and the execution of 60% of sale deeds have been done.

The ones which have completed all the development work and have filed the application for completion certificate with the concerned authority.

But these provisions are being misused by the developers as they are delivering the possession to homebuyers in a haste to be saved from the paying the penalty to RERA once it becomes active from 1st May, 2017.

Partial completion

Homebuyers will have to be cautious and will have to make sure that properties they are investing are finished in all aspects. If the homebuyers become careless, the developers will take advantage of this and the former will lose all the security under RERA.
The concept of part completion is totally new to Urban Development Act which says completion certificate has to be obtained in order to sell off the property. Facilitation of tower wise completion is like project within a project which is not a familiar concept within the urban development act. If the part certificate covers 90% of the project, then also a final completion will be the most important from the concerned authority. If they are unable to do so, the entire housing project will be under the range of RERA.

Defaulters

According to a high official, nobody among the developers and homebuyers is at fault. Nobody can compel the homebuyers to take the possession until and unless it is complete in all aspects.

All the arrangements involving water, electricity and roads surrounding the housing project, have to be handled and provided for by the government, before the developer gives out possession. Greater Noida Authority had received 35 applications for completion certificates, out of which 27 were issued, in the last six months.

The ones which were not granted the completion certificates were dealing with problems of setbacks, parking and non-issuance of no-objection certificate by the fire department.