The district administration plans to impose Gangster Act on builders who are deliberately delaying the registry of flats thus causing revenue losses to the government. Over 120 builders have been sent notices to speed up registrations of residential and commercial units in the twin cities if they have been given occupation certificate by the authorities.
“We are checking on case-to-case basis and will ask the police to slap Gangster Act against builders who may be delaying deliberately. It is a complex issue as there are dues to be paid to authorities and penalties involved. We are preparing reports for all builders,” said BN Singh, district magistrate.
Nearly 50,000 new units, including flats and shops, are expected to be registered soon. These include about 42,000 residential flats and around 8,000 commercial units like shops that have been given OC but have not been registered yet.
“We had asked the authorities to inform all defaulting builders to start registry. The authority has sent notices to 122 builders who will inform the buyers to start registering their properties. In some cases, we are getting complaints from buyers that the builder has been delaying the delivery of flats even after getting the OC, wherein we are talking to both groups to sort out the issue,” said S K Tripathy, additional inspector general (stamps and registration).
“The department is set to gain about Rs 700-800 crore in revenue if the pending flats are all registered timely under the Apartments Act 2010,” he added. One of the concerns for buyers is the registry rate that has been increased last month. While one had to pay 5% of the flat cost for stamps and an additional Rs 20,000 as fee for registry earlier, it has been changed to 5% for stamps and 1% as registry fee.
While the fee was a maximum of Rs 20,000, it can be much higher now. Some residents have complained that it is an additional burden on them, especially in cases where the builder has deliberately delayed delivery.
“In these cases as well, we are talking to the builder as well as the buyers to see if a common ground can be reached. Some builders have also agreed to settle and pay the additional amount or both parties have agreed to split the additional burden,” added Tripathy.
