RERA and Agents issues amidst CORONA Pandemic

Validity of Registration and Timeline Extension for statutory compliance are been revised due to short term crisis of Covid-19. Countries and the respective government are fighting to tackle the health and economic conditions which was caused due to sudden turmoil and rapid spread of coronavirus globally. From the mid of March 2020, the government of Maharashtra is taking precautions to prevent the rapid spread of Covid-19 by announcing lockdown, work from home and ability of partial workforce to work in construction sites. On 11th March 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) announced to all the countries for taking immediate precautions for the sake of human lives from getting affected by Covid19. 21 days lockdown has been announced globally till 14th April 2020 with the allowance of mandatory services selectively. Due to the preventive measures of lockdown, the whole construction work of Maharashtra has a great impact. The construction materials supplies has been affected and all the labour force has been sent to their respective states. All these circumstances leads to restart of Maharashtra real estate projects after a short period. RBI allowed the banks for moratorium of three months on payments of EMI and fixed term loans. To support the effort of government measures to prevent Covid-19 and also to save the current condition of Maharashtra real estate projects, this order has been issued. To influence the term of completion of projects in consideration and present circumstances, the Authority is granting the registration/ extension under. Section 5, 6, 7(3) of the Act or Rule 4(2) if Maharashtra Real Estate ( Regulation and Development) (Registration of Real Estate projects, Registration of real estate agents, rates of interest and disclosure on websites) Rules 2017. Authority also need to get the assure on the compliance of obligations imposed on promoters, the allottees and real estate agents under the section 34(f) of the Act. The completion date has been revised and the extended completion date on or after 15th March 2020, the registration validity of such respective projects of MAHARERA got the extension of three months. The issuance of registration certificate of such projects with the revision of timeline as soon as possible. The timeline limits of statutory compliance accordingly with real estate (Regulations and Development) Act,2016 and the due dates in March/April/May has been extended till 30th June 2020 for the making of rules and regulations. “In line with MAHARERA pronouncements, other state/UTs will follow the same. Developers will face lots of issues regarding availability of labour, material, logistics etc. Even cash flows will get affected due to lower future realisation from already booked Properties. Future launches will get delayed due to lower confidence on future buying. 1st quarter of FY 2020-2021 will be a struggling, 2nd quarter will be of settled down period, 3rd quarter will bounce back and last quarter of FY 2020-2021 will witness a real boom in the Real Estate residential sector. Everything has an End. Even organised real estate agents will hit very badly due to high overheads of employees, advertising and other infrastructure costs. Builders are hereby requested to create an emergency fund to clear all pending bills of all real estate agents as their only income is brokerage. Many developers have already taken steps in this regard on suo-moto basis in India. pandemic is a temporary phase, will surely come out of this. We hereby request all online classified portals to waive at least one quarter package charges” said Mahesh Somani Vice President - National Association of Realtors, India Chairman - National RERA Committee, NAR India.