SC in the case of Kolkata West International City Pvt. Ltd. Vs. Devasis Rudra stated that the buyer has the right to claim refunds from the builder, in case of unreasonable delay in handing over the possession of homes.
The facts of the case were that the buyer paid Rs. 39,29,280 in 2006 to the builder and as per the agreement, the builder was supposed to hand over the flat to the buyer in the last month of 2008, with the grace period expiring on June 2009. However, the buyer still waited till 2011 for the procession, seeing no hope, the buyer filed a complaint in the Consumer Redressal Forum. After filing the petition the buyer waited till 2016, which makes it the duration of the complete 7 years for possession.
The SC was of the view that the span of 7 years is unreasonable for a buyer to wait. The buyer may wait for a reasonable period but the period of 7 years was too long and unreasonable. SC supported the orders for refund of money passed by SCDRC and NCDRC and considered it to be justified.
However, it’s still not very easy to answer the questions like what can a buyer do in the case where the builder has no money to refund? In such a case, the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) comes into play. RERA may either help the buyer to get the possession of the house or help them refund their money so as to avoid their loans being declared non-performing assets in the bank.
Wherefore, it’s difficult to execute the orders of refund, where the builder has no money to refund or complete the project. All the stakeholders including RERA, banks and the local authority has to come together to resolve the cases where the buyers are waiting for a long period of time to get the possession of their homes.
Courtesy/By: Mariya Paliwala
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14 Apr 2019
