The Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal has overturned an earlier MahaRERA decision that allowed the Orchid Turf View housing project to be deregistered, thereby reinstating its original residential project status, according to NDTV Profit. The ruling has dealt a blow to plans by Prestige Group and DB Realty to redevelop the property for commercial use.
The Tribunal also imposed a penalty on promoters of Turf Estate Joint Venture LLP linked to DB Realty, amounting to 2% of the project’s cost. It found that the promoters had misrepresented facts to the regulator to obtain approval for the proposed changes.
The project was initially registered as “DB Turf View” under Section 5 of the RERA Act and had 27 allottees.
The promoters later applied under Section 15 to replace the project’s promoter and sought approval to convert the land use from residential to commercial, the report noted. They claimed to have secured the consent of two-thirds of the allottees, as required by law.
However, five of the 27 allottees had opposed the proposed changes. Despite this, MahaRERA approved the promoter change and allowed the project to be deregistered in 2022, even though the RERA Act does not specifically provide for such project deregistration.
The Tribunal subsequently held that the promoters had counted the consent of buyers who had already received refunds and withdrawn from the project. It ruled that their consent could not legally be included in calculating the required two-thirds majority. The Tribunal also found the cancellations of allotments made during the process to be unlawful and unenforceable.
The Tribunal has ordered the promoters to complete registered sale agreements with the affected homebuyers within 30 days. It also directed that the development follow the originally approved residential plans, effectively preventing the proposed shift to a commercial project by Prestige-DB Realty.
Meanwhile, a husband can file and pursue a complaint before MahaRERA against a real estate developer on behalf of his wife, even when the property is registered exclusively in her name, provided he has valid authorisation to represent her, the regulator has ruled in an interim order, reported Hindustan Times.
The authority ruled that the husband could maintain the complaint because he was the primary co-borrower on the home loan and had a valid Power of Attorney from his wife. The case concerns allegations of delayed possession of a flat in a Nagpur project.
The developer had disputed the complaint’s maintainability, contending that the husband was neither the registered owner nor the allottee and therefore had no independent standing under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016. It argued that since the sale deed was solely in the wife’s name, the husband should be considered a third party to the property.
Garvit Bhirani is a journalist based in Gurugram. He is a Deputy Chief Content Producer at LiveMint, where he covers national and international news stories, focusing on accuracy and compelling storytelling for readers.
<br><br>
With a total of six years of experience in journalism, he has previously worked with Vaco Binary Semantics for Google, taking on the role of news curation lead, and reported from the field on health, education, and agriculture stories for 101reporters and News9. He has also served as a content editor for entertainment and news media organisations.
<br><br>
Garvit holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and mass communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and Gurugram University, respectively. During college days, he joined India’s only non-profit student journalism network, where he anchored daily news updates and produced his own weekly show called ‘Data Fix’.
<br><br>
He was selected for the YES Foundation Media for Social Change Fellowship in Delhi, the Talking Data to the Fourth Pillar residential workshop, and the VOICE Fellowship in Pune.
<br><br>
He holds certificates in COVID-19-verification reporting, data journalism, food & agriculture, tech policy, media literacy and countering misinformation, and tackling election disinformation courses from Thomson Foundation, IndiaSpend, The Dialogue, US Mission in India, and AFP.
<br><br> He can be reached on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/garvit-bhirani">LinkedIn</a> or on <a href="https://x.com/GarvitBhirani">@garvitbhirani</a> on X
Catch all the Industry News, Banking News and Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
Log in to our website to save your bookmarks. It'll just take a moment.
Oops! Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.
