Interest of allottee paramount, refund Rs 2.30 cr, TNREAT tells promoter

CHENNAI: While observing that in a dispute between an allottee and promoter in a real project, the interest of the allottee is paramount, said the Tamil Nadu Real Estate Appellate Tribunal (TNREAT) and ordered a promoter to refund the entire amount of Rs 2.30 crore for failing to handover the property on time.

Homebuyers Vijay Shankar Venugopal and his father-in-law SK Balasubramanian had booked two separate apartments in the ‘Embassy Residency’ project developed by RGE Constructions and Development in 2012.

The promoter had promised that the apartments will be handed over within 3 years. However, they apartments were not handed over despite lapsing 7 years as of 2019.

While inspecting the building in 2017, the buyers found that the construction was not fully completed and their apartments were inhabitable. According to them, the quality of the construction was very poor.

Several hundreds of emails were exchanged between them from 2017 to 2019.

However, they came forward to accept the handover ‘under protest; in April 2019 but the promoter refused to hand over the apartments. Aggrieved by this, the buyers filed a complaint with TNRERA in 2020 seeking a refund.

Hearing the sides, the single member of TNRERA concluded that the buyers have taken over the possession in 2019 and refused to order a refund. Moreover, it asked buyers to pay pending due amounts to the promoters.

While hearing the appeal filed by the buyers, the Tribunal observed that in a dispute between an allottee and the promoter, the interest of the allottee was paramount.

“The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 has been enacted to protect the interest of the consumers in the real estate sector,” the Tribunal observed.