The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) has reduced the minimum registration fees from Rs 50,000 to Rs 10,000 for projects that will enable smaller units, especially in the rural areas, to come under its purview.
The change has been effected in accordance with the amended rules issued by the Maharashtra Housing Department on June 6, MahaRERA officials said.
With the prescribed rate of Rs10 per square metre and the minimum area of plot under RERA being 500 square metre, the minimum charge reduction would ensure that developers with smaller projects are encouraged to register with MahaRERA and no longer pay a blanket charge of Rs50,000, the officials said.
“Many cities, other than the metropolitans, have several small projects that may be spread over a little more than 1,000 sq metre or 1,200 sq metre. If these developers had to register their projects, they would have to pay Rs50,000. irrespective of the area. But the reduced minimum charges would encourage such developers to come forward and register their projects,” a senior MahaRERA official said.
MahaRERA completed two years of its implementation in May this year. The officials said over 21,000 projects have been registered in the state, the maximum in the country. Following this, the authorities have taken initiative to ensure more registrations and have more developers under MahaRERA’s purview.
“In the first and second year of the implementation of the rules, it was noticed that most of the registrations came from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and from cities such as Pune and Nagpur. Not many registrations came from the rural areas of the state. This year, our main focus is to penetrate into these areas,” the MahaRERA official said, as he elaborated the need for the amendments.
The changed rules have also reduced the fees for plotted developments, a move that will bring more projects from the rural areas under MahaRERA. In case of plotted development, the promoters have to pay an extended fee calculated on the area of the land proposed to be developed at the rate of Rs5 per sq meter.
Consumer forums, which have been urging MahaRERA to go ahead with these amendments, said the recent changes in the rules regarding registration of projects were done keeping in mind the ground realities. “Till the other day, the rules had not defined plotted development though RERA also covered plotted developments. Through this amendment, the definition of the plotted development has been added to the MahaRERA rules,” Mumbai Grahak Panchayat president Shirish Deshpande said. He added that bringing down the rate for plotted development from Rs10 to Rs5 per sq metre was “realistic”.
Besides, the conveyance to be done by the promoter is within three months since the arrival of the occupation certificate. The amended rules do not give the developers any options for delay.
“The earlier rule stated that the promoters have to give conveyance once 50% of the homebuyers paid full consideration or within one month from the formation of the society or within three months from the date of occupancy certificate, whichever earlier. This was impractical. The MGP had taken this up with the authorities while framing the original rules. But it was not considered then. However, the amended rules state that the conveyance has to be done within three months from the date of occupation certificate. It makes sense,” Deshpande said.
Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India, vice-president Shantilal Kataria said the reduction of minimum fees for registration will benefit the tier two, three and four cities and encourage more developers to register with MahaRERA. He, however, said the conveyance period of three months should have been six months.
