Currently, home buyers prefer going for under construction properties mainly for two reasons, firstly because these are more affordable than ready made houses and secondly the satisfaction is immense in this case. However the problems home buyers often face is the delay in delivery that occurs due to the developers. Developers often cite a clause to have the legal esgem while entering into an agreement, home buyers many times overlook it. The clause refers to 'Force Majeure'.
The above term refers to an act of God. Force Majeure refers to an inevitable accident in legal parlance. Events that could not be anticipated or controlled from beforehand falls under this category. It is recognised under the Indian Contract Act 1872 that gives the parties more time to perform the contractual obligations. Generally the agreements between developers and buyers have the Force Majeure clause. It is basically to protect the developer against uncertainty. But many developers use this to explain vague incident and derive benefits. In fact, of late many real estate cases has been rejected by the National Consumer Disputes Resolution Commission for the usage of arbitrary grounds where the Developers have cited shortage of sand due to curb in illegal sand mining mafia, shortage of labour due to government economic policies etc. The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority ruled that developers can’t use the force majeure clause for financial crisis and lack of approvals in any project. Force majeure has to be external and not predicted earlier. There must not be any human element involved. Examples are earthquake, floods etc. It does not relieve the defaulting party completely. All it does, is to suspend the performance for the time being.
Courtesy/By: Subhalagna Choudhury
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24 Sep 2018
