A home-buyer, Venugopal, who had dragged an Anna Nagar-based builder to a consumer court flagging defects in the flat purchased by him has been granted ₹50,000 compensation for rectification of defects and another ₹20,000 for mental agony.
“The complainant had invested huge money in the construction. He would certainly expect a flat without any defects. There is no doubt that the complainant would have suffered serious mental agony when the flat was handed over to him with defects,” said a bench consisting of president Justice R Subbiah and Venkatesa Perumal.
Vardhaman Construction and Investment owned by G Sundararajan, sold 586 sqft of undivided share of plot in Ayanavaram for ₹12.95 lakh to Venugopal in 2009. The construction company had also promised that it would construct a second floor which was eventually never completed. While he spent ₹40 lakh on the construction of the flat, another ₹1.5 lakh was spent on a parking space.
While moving in, Venugopal found substandard material had been used in construction and there were cracks on walls. The RCC roof was rendered useless as it had been constructed haphazardly by just laying tiles over the roof without applying necessary lime brick mixture and water-proof chemicals.
The commission had initially ordered ₹30,000 compensation for rectification, which was then increased to ₹50,000 as Venugopal filed an appeal.