Refund Rs 7 crore to flat buyers; builder cannot keep extending deadlines: MahaREAT

The Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal ruled on May 4 that the “completion date cannot keep getting extended on grant of each commencement certificate (CC)” and ordered a builder to refund a couple who paid nearly Rs 7 crore for a 16th-floor flat in a Bandra (East) highrise in 2015. They did not obtain possession even by the revised December 2019 deadline.

The tribunal overturned a MahaRERA order from January 2020, stating that the revised date of possession on the MahaRERA website cannot be considered the agreed date of possession, and thus the buyers were entitled to a refund with interest under the RERA Act.

The tribunal, chaired by Justice Indira Jain and Dr. K Shivaji, stated that the “delivery date mentioned on MahaRERA’s website is unilaterally revised without the complainant’s consent.” As a result, the complainant is not bound by it. As a result, the project completion date listed on the MahaRERA website cannot be used as the agreed-upon possession date.”

Monika and Rajesh Agarwal filed a complaint with MahaRERA in April 2019 against Forum Homes Pvt Ltd, seeking a refund for the delay in possession. According to their lawyer, Harsh Malhotra, the allotment letter dated March 31, 2015, set the date for possession as December 31, 2017. The builder moved the couple’s flat to the 16th floor on the same terms in September 2016. They had paid 92 percent of the Rs 7.4 crore flat cost by the end of September 2017.

Dissatisfied with a unilateral revision of the due date to December 2019, they invoked the RERA Act’s beneficial provisions and sought a refund. The authority that heard their complaint, MahaRERA, rejected it after the builder claimed it was premature and denied any delay. The authority stated that because the possession or delivery date had not yet passed, the right to seek a refund under Section 18 of RERA had not yet accrued.

The couple filed an appeal. Saloni Sulakhe, the builder’s lawyer who is opposing the appeal, stated that the project was almost finished and denied any delays. According to the builder, MahaRERA correctly held the ‘last’ CC in May 2019 for “full height of the building” up to 20 floors.

When the project was registered under RERA, the due date was December 2019, but due to the pandemic, it was pushed back to December 2021, and “as per allotment letter, agreed possession date is 36 months from date of last approval or December 2017, whichever is later, and thus it would be 36 months from May 2019,” according to the builder. The tribunal agreed with Malhotra’s claim that the allotment letter does not even include the word “last” before approval.