What are your Rights as a Home Buyer?

Are you planning to buy a home of your dreams? Well, buying a home is a bit tedious task. It involves many complex legal processes. Buying a home is perhaps one of your largest financial investments. Isn’t it? Particularly, if you are a first-time home buyer, your mind would be filled with hundreds of doubts and questions.

For instance, if someone is looking for flats in Calicut, he/she would be concerned with his /her rights over the property, terms and conditions offered by the builders, delays if any and other problems. As a home buyer, you might have many questions.

Before diving into what the home buyers’ rights are as per the Government norms, let us first analyse the process of buying a home in India.

1. First analyse your financial situation and requirements.
2. Find a property that caters to your specific requirements.
3. Inspect the property and seek professional help if needed.
4. Get into an agreement with the seller. Ensure that details like price and also personal details of both buyer and seller are highlighted before signing the same.
5. Find a reliable lender. It is always recommended that you associate with reliable financial institutions like the SBI while applying for a home loan. Play it safe.
6. Perform a thorough analysis of your property to avoid any loopholes in the agreement.
7. At the time of closing, ask seller for all the legal documents associated with your property and get it registered in your name.

These are some of the common steps that one follows while buying a home. Now, let us shift the focus on the rights of a home buyer. As a home buyer, there are several rights granted to you that include mortgage loans, the rate of interest on loan and several others. Awareness of such rights protects you from being duped.

Here are some of the rights that you are entitled to as a home buyer:

Right to obtain information
The home buyers are eligible to know the details of sanctioned layouts and plans of the building. They can also claim for the specifications which are approved by the construction control authority.

Right to know the stages of construction
Under RERA, the home-buyers are entitled to know the stage-wise schedule of the construction of the project. It includes the provision of water, electricity, sanitation and other amenities promised by the builder.

Right to possession of the property
The home-buyer has the right to claim possession of the building, plot or apartment. It is the duty of the builder to provide all the legal documents to the buyer.

Rights to document
It is the duty of the real estate builders to handover all the legal documents related to the property to the home-buyer. Under RERA act, allotted can claim documents and plans of the common areas.


These are some of the rights one should take advantage of as a home buyer. So, if you are looking for your dream home, exercise your rights and make an informed decision. Let me know if you have any doubts or your feedback in the comment section below.


This is a guest post by Sreekanth, who is a digital marketing expert at Webdura Technology. He enjoys experimenting with new techniques in both print and the web. He also loves to explore roads less traveled. Reach him by writing in your details in the comments sections.

Rahul Gandhi attacks Modi Government’s Real Estate Regulatory Bill. Is he right??

Author: Sachin Gupta | Find me on Twitter Follow @sach_gupta

Real Estate Regulatory Authority Bill is facing tough resistance from the Congress Party. Congress Party Vice President has taken up the cause of middle class home buyers. Congress Party is of the view that the bill in its current state is anti-home-buyer and pro builder.

Last Saturday 2nd May 2015, about 200 home buyers who have grievances against builders met Mr. Rahul Gandhi at Congress Headquarters. The problems highlighted by home-buyers ranged from delay in deliveries of flats to shortchanging by the developers.

Congress opines that some amendments to their bill have been made which are pro-builders (Read here about Real Estate Regulatory Bill 2013 passed by Congress Government).

1. Definition of Carpet area has been changed. As per the bill passed by the Congress party, carpet area was ‘net usable area’ in an apartment, excluding the walls. Now, it has been amended and the ‘net usable area’ will be ‘rent-able area’ as defined in National Building Code 2005 or its later versions.
2. In the bill passed by Congress government, builders were not allowed to change the sanctioned plan once it was approved. Now it has been amended and minor changes are allowed by informing the buyer. 
3. In the bill passed by the Congress government, it was difficult to get extensions on project deadlines. However, it has been amended now and builder can seek extensions‘…due to force majeure or under such conditions as may be prescribed, which may include issue of completion certificate, approvals etc. without default on the part of promoter…’
4. In the bill passed by Congress government, a builder had to keep 70% of the money collected from home-buyers for the project. Now it has been amended to 50%.

Well, the points made by the Congress party are certainly in the interest of the home-buyers. However, we need to look at the whole picture comprising of Home-buyers, builders, and authorities.

Let’s take an analogy. A car comprises of fuel injection mechanism and exhaust mechanism. Fuel goes in the engine and burns and produces emissions. If fuel is of good quality and is mixed appropriately, then, we have a complete combustion and there are no toxic emissions.

As things stand today in real estate sector, we won’t get the solution if we focus only on the exhaust side. Because make no mistake, howsoever, we may try to fix the problem at the exhaust side, we won’t get the solution. There will always be toxic elements.

What we need to do is ‘fix the problem at the Fuel intake side’. And that means, taking into consideration all stakeholders including the builders, home-buyers, and authorities.

What are the ingredients for ‘Good quality of Fuel’ at the intake stage?

1. Make Land acquisition process smooth and transparent.
2. Digitize land records in order to eliminate title disputes.
3. Single window clearances for realty projects. As things stand today, a developer has to take 40-60 approvals depending on the state. This whole process of taking approvals delays the project and increases the cost. By some estimates, project cost will come down by 20% if we have a single window clearance mechanism in place.
4. Independence agencies to inspect the project during construction phase in order to make sure that project is being constructed as per the ‘National Building Code’.

Having the right Fuel at the intake stage will make sure that construction of the project is smooth and on time. There won’t be any discrepancies.

Thanks!

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