Part of Palais Royale to be auction by the collector – Mumbai

By Abhay Shah, Realty Quarter

Besides problems for the developer of Palais Royale, the 56-floor under-construction tower at Worli Naka in Mumbai, the town collector will auction out a portion of the land he stands to recover dues for a flat purchaser.

The forthcoming sale was made on the order of the government housing regulator MahaRera last year in favour of a flat buyer who paid Rs 25 crore to the builder, Shree Ram Urban Infrastructure Ltd. The complaint was extremely tardy when the house was handed over.

It is the first time in the city that an open plot of 3,046 sq m, forming the part of the 16-acre Shree Ram Mills, which is housed at the Palais Royale, is auctioned by a collector. The auction is scheduled to take place on July 25 and the plot is valued at Rs 47.42 crore by the collector. “This is the first significant auction which will be done by a collector for Rera’s recovery,” said a real estate source.

The housing regulator has no authority to add the default developer company’s assets and sell them and pay homebuyers. This authority has been entrusted to Tehsildar and the collector’s office. The MahaRERA Recovery Warrant was issued on September 2018 against the builder for non-compliance, and the collector is now auctioning the property.

Interestingly, the tower itself, which at the time of completion would be the highest residential building in India, was recently auctioned out by Indiabulls Housing Finance after a loan of around Rs 700 crore was not paid by the developer and his guarantor Vikas Kasliwal. Honest Shelters, a Pune based firm, has given a bid-offer of Rs 705 crore for the incomplete skyscraper.

The tower, in which each luxury apartment was for Rs 15-50 crore, was litigated for its illegal mass building and misuse of the Floor Space Index (FSI). This has been a matter of the lawsuit. A decision is requested by the Supreme Court on the offences.