Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority forms teams to amicably settle matter between home buyers and realtors

The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) has decided to form 15 conciliation teams, where the home buyer and the builder amicably settle the matter.

Each team will be comprising of two members, one from the developers’ body and one from consumer forums representing home buyers.

10 conciliation teams will be located in Mumbai Thane and Navi Mumbai, (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) and the remaining five will be for Pune.

The benefit of these conciliation teams will be that if the developer or the home buyer wants they can amicably settle the matter even before reaching the authority.

“We are in the process of setting up an Alternate Dispute Resolution mechanism through these conciliation committees. We are optimistic that we will be able to start operations of these from January 1,” said Shirish Deshpande, president of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP).

For now, the aim is setting up conciliation teams for Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Pune as most of the complaints received from homebuyers are for projects from these markets. If this is successful then the authority may go to other areas like Nagpur, Nashik and others.

"This is being done in the backdrop of MahaRERA receiving a lot of complaints and wants to set up a filter. This body can be approached by homebuyer and builder for reaching a consensus, thereby leaving only matters that cannot be resolved for MahaRERA's intervention," said Deshpande.

Members of Realty developers’ associations including pan-India bodies such as National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO) and the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) apart from state level body the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (MCHI) will be part of these benches.

To represent home buyers, the bench will have members from Mumbai Grahak Pnachayat.

Under this mechanism, home buyers’ complaints against the builders can be resolved through a consensus. If the consensus is not reached, the home buyer will have an option available to lodge a formal complaint against the builder in MahaRERA.

The authority has been swift in its hearings of the home buyer complaints and has been delivering verdicts at the earliest.

The authority has now decided to set up these benches to ensure that numbers of complaints reaching them are fewer after taking care of such cases that can be resolved through consensus.