Till date, 23 states’ Real Estate Regualtory Authroity (RERA) have extended registration of projects by six months and one by nine months in view of the situation created by COVID-19, said Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
As advised by the ministry, this has been done ‘suo moto’ to cut down unnecessary paper work & delay.
“Some citizens have raised concerns on social media against extension given to real estate developers through Ministry’s Advisory to States/RERA to complete the projects. This has been done as an essential measure to safeguard the interest of homebuyers,” said Mishra.
He further said that due to COVID-19, works of ongoing real estate projects have halted. Large scale reverse migration of labour & huge disruption in supply chain of materials have adversely impacted construction works. Labour is least likely to return before festivals in October- November get over.
Some citizens have raised concerns on social media against extension given to real estate developers through Ministry’s Advisory to States/RERA to complete the projects. This has been done as an essential measure to safeguard the interest of homebuyers.
In such circumstances, real estate projects will take quite some time to resume works fully. Surely this will delay completion leading to lot of litigations for non-compliance of commitments on time and make projects fail/ get stressed, added Mishra.
Hence, in order to safeguard the interest of all stakeholders especially home buyers & to ensure delivery of houses/flats to them, Ministry advised States/ RERA to invoke the ‘force majeure’ clause under the law.
RBI has recently allowed moratorium of 6 months till 31 August, 2020 to homebuyers for payment of dues in view of Covid-19. Hence, borrowers get effectively 9 months to put their accounts in order without getting NPA.
“These measures have been taken to ensure that projects do not get stalled due to disruptions caused by Covid-19 pandemic & flats/ homes get delivered to the homebuyers albeit with some delay
I would reiterate that homebuyers with lifetime savings invested in dream home project are interested in flats/homes & not litigations or making developers get failed,” said Mishra.