The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act came into force on May 1st and has brought along with it a range of benefits for buyers and sellers. The main motive behind this Act is to bring transparency and accountability in the real estate community as a whole.
RERA is not the same from State to State, and Tamil Nadu, which had delayed notifying the rules, finally notified the rules and guidelines recently.
Ambiguities exist
Yet there has not been a huge sigh of relief for a lot of ambiguities still exist within the rules. For example, the Tamil Nadu Government has kept a fine of 10% of the project cost and/or three-year jail period as penal provisions, but it is not clear as to what mistake or act on the part of the builder will attract such punishment.
Projects in the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA), for which the application for the completion certificate has been filed with the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), along with a certificate from someone associated with the project, be it the licensed surveyor, architect or structural engineer, are exempted from the Act.
Projects falling outside the CMA limits and that have been structurally completed and are certified along with the project photographs are out of the compass of RERA.
In addition to this, the state government also plans to bring more housing projects within RERA’s purview by reducing the number of units covered in the ambitious legislation. The central act covers projects with nine or more units, but projects with five or more units constructed beyond an area of 500 square meters will come under RERA in Tamil Nadu. This comes in lieu of the fact that buildings with five or more units are usually used for commercial purposes and below that are mostly for self-consumption in the state.
