No Lessons Learnt

Even after repeated acts of violations by rogue developers, we refuse to learn our lessons and return to invest with them

Even if you’re no backwoods philosopher, but when someone says it’s safer to live under a tree than invest in a Noida home, how right is that? Real estate, especially in Noida, has become something of a bad word to most investors. Rogue builders abound, so does a politician-authority-developer nexus. What’s surprising, however, is the buyer’s indifference to it all. Even when it’s well established that A, B & C builders are best avoided, you get the news that they are launching new projects and the response has been terrific. 

When you read complaints regarding developers changing original project plans, delaying delivery but charging buyers penalty at possession and all sorts of duping tactics, you fell taking your money out of the market and stuffing it under the mattress. It’s safe there, at least. A Supertech Capetown buyer writes: “I have received my possession letter recently with final payment notice. The final payment settlement does not include the "Penalty Fee on Supertech" as the possession of my apartment has been delayed by two years. I tried to call customer care several times. I wrote back to them five times already. Still no response. This is the height of ignorance. Next time if they come to Hong Kong with the property show, I’m going to give them some serious feedback for their poor management and extremely poor customer service.” Another buyer complains: “Supertech is charging 24% interest on delay payment and not giving any delay compensation. This is second degree harassment! They don't have any customer service! They're forcing everyone to sign a consent letter trough which they want to get all the rights, so that they can do whatever they want to do! They are not replying to any emails. Does anyone have contact number of their executive incharge? It would be better to file an RTI and find out how many hundred crores they are making through 24% interest.” Capetown is just once instance. We all know what happened with the Supertech twin towers at Sector-93. Not just Supertech, hundreds of buyers have been waiting endlessly for their builders to get completion certificates from the Noida Authority for their Expressway homes. The housing woes of Greater Noida West buyers are never-ending. When everything seems to be fine with the land, the developers are applying for layout changes, thus delaying possession. Further, how does one explain the buyers’ predicament, who invested in a property that was free from farmers’ dispute and according to the builder, had all approvals in place? We have enough examples of top-notch developers like Unitech and DLF cheating homebuyers. Checking with the banks about the health of a project is a good way to know, but at least four banks were financing the Supertech twin tower property, including IDBI and ICICI. In fact, most real estate consultants I talked to in the wake of the Supertech case, had serious issues with the fact that builders have absolutely no accountability towards delivering what they promise - whether it is timely completion, or quality of construction, or disclosing all the hidden charges, or in accurate advertisements and accurate brochures, or even delivering the correct square footage! This is where the government is failing to regulate and punish such blatant frauds, and it is failing badly. It’s true that we are attracted to investing in a real estate project in the hope of some kind of yield that beats the pittance that banks are paying. But what’s surprising is that even after repeated acts of violations by greedy developers of perfectly laid down norms, many of us, like turtles peeking cautiously out of our shells, return to invest with the same rogue developer! We all know how authorities have violated perfectly laid down norms and allotted grazing fields, ponds and even graveyard lands to realtors for developing group housing projects. The sad part is that most of these builders still find buyers when they offer a good discount, or some tempting scheme. Yes, one can definitely take the matter to court, but one should have the finances and time to deal with all this. Most of us are already stuck with loans and on top of that paying a lawyer is not easy.