Home buyers demand that Karnataka RERA not allow or facilitate partial occupancy

May 3, 2023
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BENGALURU: Home buyers are demanding that the Karnataka Real Estate Regulatory Authority (K-RERA) not deviate from rules pertaining to the occupancy certificate (OC). They are requesting that the K-RERA not allow or facilitate civic bodies to issue partial occupancy certificates to builders.

According to Karnataka Home Buyers Forum Sanchalak Dhananjaya Padmanabhachar, one of the important reasons why RERA Karnataka failed to provide justice to home buyers is the dilution of the RERA Act 2016 and incorrect definition of RERA Rules. “Some of the important deviations that we have seen are with respect to OC and formation of allottees association.

The RERA Act recognises Occupancy Certificate, whereas RERA Karnataka introduced Partial OC,” said Dhananjaya Padmanachar.

He stated that the Act speaks about the formation of allottees association, and the expectation was that rules would define under which Act the association of allottees should be formed.

“Because of these two important dilutions in the rules, home buyers in Karnataka are impacted very badly. Until the OC is obtained, the maintenance of the apartment is supposed to be handled by the promoter themselves. But because of the introduction of Partial OC in RERA Rules, the promoters are passing on their responsibility for maintenance to flat owners,” he said.

He added that the K-RERA rules pertaining to the formation of allottees association are not clear. “The builders are not following Section 17 of the Act. It states that the common areas need to be transferred to allottees association by executing conveyance deeds,” he said.

Naval Veteran Commander Surendra expressed a similar opinion. “The builders get a plan sanctioned from the authorities to construct three to four towers (in three to four phases) of the apartment complex but get a partial occupancy certificate without completing the whole project. We cannot expect a builder to complete all four phases (towers) at once, but they must obtain the OC only after completing the entire project. It will facilitate home buyers to avail facilities like gym, piped water,” he said.

On June 3, 2022, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary wrote a letter to the Chief Secretaries of States to submit a comparison report on the dilution of rules by the RERAs of the respective states. Last August, the Supreme Court asked all state governments to reply to the deviations/variations pointed out in the implementation of the RERA Act 2016 and corresponding rules in their jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Housing Department Under Secretary (RERA) Hemavathy R stated, “We have sent the reply to the union housing department stating that the state government is considering the amendment to the K-RERA Act pertaining to the partial occupancy certificate issue.”

  • Published On May 3, 2023 at 09:01 AM IST

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