Watchdog Committee on Realty Projects Proposed

“Dream homes” advertised in national dailies are luring aspiring home owners to make big budget investments in township projects in Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

However, to the dismay of many a investor, most of these full
page advertisements are fake, duping purchasers into fraudulent
deals.
Assocham has alerted the government on the unscrupulous activities
of so-called real estate developers.

A vigilance committee has
been recommended to monitor the projects of all private builders
and real estate developers and verify the contents of the advertisements
with their actual projects.

A monitoring committee should ideally have members from the
Ministry of Urban Affairs, development commissioners, and representatives
of the real estate developers’ community, retired judges and appointees from industry.

With a large number of buyers investing in outstation properties, especially NRIs, not many of them visit the site before signing up.

Real estate developers take undue advantage of this fact, creating
glossy brochures and smart websites which leave a positive impression
on prospective buyers. Fraudulent deals offering attractive property
options at low budgets are rampant in Hardwar, Rishikesh, Nainital,
Rudrapur, Mukteshwar, Ranikhet, Kausoli, Dehradun, Bhiwadi, Jaipur,
Mathura, Vrindavan, Shimla, Manali, Sonepat and Panipat.

NRIs exploring property investment prospects in India usually
go by the internet and the property exhibitions held by real
estate developers marketing overseas. A few cases of fake deals
have made NRI investors wary of putting in their money in this
otherwise lucrative opportunity.
Incidents of bogus cases eclipse opportunities for genuine buyers
and sellers of property, affecting the industry at large.

A number
of established real estate developers do have major township
projects underway in these Tier III cities, and the new brand
of builders is riding on their popularity, catching the investor’s eye with full-blown advertisements and lower rates.

The Assocham President Venugopal Dhoot has urged the government
to take immediate steps to put the monitoring committee in place
to protect the industry. Punitive measures should be taken against
offenders and victims of sham deals should be assisted in getting
redressed.