Vision of Life; by Sanjay: MAHARERA, a Rein or a Noose for the Real Estate!

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else’… Sam Walton

‘If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable” … Louis D. Brandeis

Samuel Moore Walton was an American business magnate best known for founding the retailers such as Walmart and Sam's Club, which he started in Rogers, Arkansas and Midwest City, Oklahoma in 1962. Louis Dembitz Brandeis was an American lawyer who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. Walton, as we all know as Walmart is one of the biggest super shoppe chain in the world while Brandeis may be lesser known to us yet I always admire America & respect her for the way different fraternities’ gets gelled here especially on the front of respecting customer & law, which is perfectly reflected in above two quotes respectively! Most importantly, Americans have understood the importance of understanding these two entities i.e. customer & law as then only they both are respected, a thing which we the Indians are way behind to adopt, leave apart copy! Why we won’t be able to never beat America, is not because we don’t have talent or capacity on any front, the only reason is we don’t have the attitude when it comes to respect either customer or the law! My such statement may make me very unpopular among so called “Deshpremis” but that won’t change the facts! Or else today maximum applications for going to USA for any reason won’t have been from our beloved country & those applicants includes some of the best brains who have passed from the top institutes of the country where govt spends millions for these student’s careers, there all the “Deshpremis” turns a blind eye or are ignorant as well these applicants has non-educated but street smart people too, whose street smartness doesn’t help them to earn decent here, that’s why they also want to go to America, anyways that’s different aspect of sharing, so let it be!

The reason for my Americano love (sarcasm) is, recently one of my journalist friends asked me to write about a new circular about conditions (read as rules & regulations) from MAHARERA which is the governing body for all the real estate industry regarding RERA in our State. By now RERA is a well-known term to most people the way its ED & CBI are & frankly (read as bluntly) many people think RERA does the same job for real estate industry which other two agencies do for the society & these many people include builders also! Well, I have been in real estate since last 35 years & I have seen the spectrum where builder used to refuse to even meet the clients as well the rate per sft of the flats used to change every day the way share market does & commitment was not the word the real estate industry has, yet the things were going (I am referring to Maharashtra State only)! There may be a builder's market yet the fact is, thousands of projects got completed & people did get their respective homes or else there wouldn’t have been a redevelopment boom today (read as so many successfully completed buildings with residents eligible for their redevelopment legally), right? There had been irregularities but many of them were because of lack of knowledge or ignorance or greed by the home buyers, is also a bold statement I will make here, & all of these were tagged as “majburi” i.e. helplessness of the client or monopoly of the builders! Which I differ, as there was option of “not buying,” then also, the very same way Bajaj (no offence, just a scale for comparison) scooters were available on premium that too with waiting list yet people used to wait & the scooter has many technical issues but nobody thought of getting a governing body for automobile segment & same things has happened for TV or even Freeze in the past! Then why only real estate is blamed for cheating or ignoring customers, is I always want to ask & the main reason is, home is an emotional thing for most Indians & second, real estate was always un-organized, un-united segment in comparison with any other industry or say self-centred with individuals busy in making money & caring a hoot about the policies & such things. Till the time organizations like Credai & Nardeco & MBVA came into picture the damage in the eyes of the public & govt’s attitude towards real estate has been done & outcome is RERA! Again, I am not defending wrong deeds of builders nor opposing RERA (does it matters though!), what I am trying to share is a regulation authority should be like a rein for a racing horse i.e. it must be tight enough to control the horse’s direction & speed, at the same time it should not become a noose making the horse give up the race getting choked due to over tightening of the rein!

And then, I don’t blame RERA as it’s the real estate which brought it upon themselves as earlier also MOFA (Maharashtra Ownership of Flat Act) was there & it was, is more stringent than RERA in many ways yet its poor implementation of MOFA & home buyer’s ignorance about their rights leads that path or say need for RERA, of which governing authority is MAHARERA for our State. Now, if you are enlightened about the subject then let’s see what’s latest salvo MAHARERA has fired for the real estate as RERA demands transparency for the customers & that’s fine but an industry which is not yet organized & has multiple layers needs to be handled carefully if we want the right effect of any rule is what I feel & that’s why the sharing!

First and foremost, let's understand why RERA came in existence, its sole purpose was to protect client's interest as earlier in many States builder were misleading home buyers which were helpless against such cheating & these States weren’t having any effective system like MOFA in place to protect flat holder’s interest against the builders. So, what RERA did or is supposed to do is, to make the builders stay committed to what they have promised to the clients & for that builders are needed to put everything in written agreement format right at the beginning, that's all!!

Unfortunately, as usual the problem is not RERA rules or intentions but it's execution as take the latest RERA guidelines asks builders to give all amenities in writing as well time limits for those amenities to be provided to the clients or take example of quality audit or workmanship, I think high time to analyse or say differentiate the area of jurisdiction of RERA! The amenities’ mentioning part is ok as that's anyways going to be a committed thing even as per the brochure also but the time-line can be a tricky thing especially when project is large and to play safe, builders will give longer date about which RERA can't do anything! Same way, quality audit is not RERA purview as post possession maintenance is mandatory for the builder, so why go into it & how are we going to control it, is the next question!! Same is for Senior Citizen’s amenities in any project, let customer demand & decide what they want as they have a choice of not buying their home with the respective builder, why RERA has to decide what is good for Senior Citizens, something by which they themselves are going to increase their workload, is what I feel!

About common amenities and specifications, it’s perfectly fine as the client has right to know what kind of tiles or sanitary fittings or lifts will be there in his home but there has to be allowance for availability of all these materials at the time of that work stage which will be two or three years from the RERA registration of the project or else the clients of today are at par with builders in making others’ lives miserable & can take disadvantage of these lacunas!! Similarly, in case of projects with multiple buildings there has to be provision to modify (without affecting view of already sold units or their accessibility) common facilities/ amenities/ open spaces, for the flexibility of planning, is what I suggest as an engineer! Last but least, when things get bitter then either of the parties (usually the flat holder) goes to the Police & joke is, even with RERA in place for more than seven years yet action is being taken under MOFA provisions which must be abandoned now, thus making the clients take advantage of the system against the builders & our system (read as investigating agencies) always loves such loopholes, especially when it’s some businessman’s neck is caught in the noose! Again, I don’t say protect builders, what I am saying is, use one law for one crime as or else justice never gets delivered in the right way! Oh yes, something I keep on repeatedly putting forward as if Hon. MAHARERA try to tame even the real estate agents as they too are beneficiary of real estate sale of any project then why it don't get Govt related depts also under its jurisdiction, because right from delaying sanctions, stopping the submission procedure with new Boos comes in place to denying taking responsibility of basic services like water, road & drainage, all such things govt's respective dept's keep on doing while they too earn (a lot) from every sft of any project, right?

Few words of my learnings for the builders; MAHARERA is here & will keep on tightening the noose as in this country doing business such as real estate & earning money is never going to be a respectable job & the system (including media) will always look at you with suspicious eyes is a bitter fact, so you only learn to keep the things as straight as much you can & not just with customers but with everybody you deal with as then you don’t have to be afraid of any RERA or MOFA thingy, though that doesn’t mean you are insured for ever; terms & conditions apply (sorry for sarcasm)!

To conclude, all I will say is, any deal works on terms & conditions but more than that it's about building relations, this aspect should be the essence of the deal is what RERA also should take in account, adios with this note...!!

Sanjay Deshpande

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

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