Representing about 130 small and big real estate developers of NCR, Pankaj Bajaj, President of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India-National Capital Region Chapter (Credai NCR) talks to Sumit Kumar in a no-holds barred interaction on demerits of the Real Estate Regulatory Bill, how industry status won't help the real estate sector and how Credai-NCR is working at shedding that buyer's feeling about why paying a real estate developer for a house in NCR is a mistake. Edited excerpts:
Why is there a need for a code of conduct in Real Estate Sector?
Real estate, right now, is a much maligned sector. The general feeling among people is that this is a sector that is unregulated and needs direct regulation. People think that they get trapped while paying money to realtors and nobody listens after they get involved in any mishap. I would say that just like any business there are some good people and some bad people. The market forces, over a period of time, generally weed out the bad ones. But its not happening in the Indian real estate market, hence the good forward thinking developers have come together to form this organisation, Credai-NCR, and have insisted on self-regulation. We have decided to forget what the government is planning to introduce, forget what the media criticises us about and forget the Real Estate Regulatory Bill, we will do our own regulation that has been successful in other sectors in the past as well. Code of conduct is just a tool that helps us ensure self regulation.
The idea is that all our members will sign the code of conduct and will adhere to its clauses. Our motive is to do away with the belief that a customer gets that investing in real estate was his mistake. If the buyer is not happy with the developer then he can come to us and lodge a complaint with us. He has every right to go and complain to the consumer court afterwards but we would like the buyer to come to us first and lodge a complaint at our consumer grievance redressal forum on our website. We have constituted a panel of 6-7 people that consists of two respected developers, people from the judiciary, lawyers and architects to attend to the complaints.
How has been the response till now?
We have found that 80 percent of the complaints are just due to the communication gap. When the complaint reaches the builder from Credai, he gets worried and insists to solve the issue at his level itself. Peer pressure is what works in this setup.
For instance, in the past week among 150 complaints received by us, 120 of them were resolved by just forwarding it to the concerned builder. Rest of them were not solved, probably because either of the parties was being unreasonable.
In this case the complaint is forwarded to the panel, which asks the builder to give a written reply to the customer. Later on, we mediate to find a common ground. Almost 99 percent problems get resolved through this method and 1 percent go to the consumer court. I would say that let us not wait for the Real Estate Regulatory Bill and opt for transparency.
Is the code of conduct just a mediation tool or does it have any teeth?
The emphasis is on bringing as much transparency as possible in exchange of money. Everything should be told to the customer before he invests. Calculations should be transparent. There should be clear break-up of area given to the customer. There should be a transparent clause on how much penalty should the realtor pay if the possession is delayed. The decision of deciding the penalty is left with realtors, so that the customer gets to choose the project depending upon what is more profitable. Credai is not discussing the commercial agreement between the customer and the builder.
Source:economictimes.indiatimes.com
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