The draft Real Estate Regulation and Development Bill 2011, is to be published by the government to allow stakeholders to comment on the new rules and could be presented to parliament before the end of the year.
The bill aims to make the nation’s emerging real estate market more transparent and also create a new regulators authority to oversee the industry although it is not yet clear what powers the new authority might have.
It is expected that the bill will compel developers to make public disclosures related to land title, project completion date and other relevant details.
The disclosures will have to be made before launching a project, so that consumers are not taken for a ride at a later stage and the promoters will also have to register themselves with the new regulatory authority.
However, real estate developers led by their representative organisation, CREDAI, have been opposing the creation of a new regulatory body to supervise the sector and claim it would become a ‘breeding ground for corruption’.
The new bill also needs to strike a balance for the industry as a whole as some developers have been reducing prices due to a cut in demand as prices are perceived as being too high for ordinary buyers in boom areas.
There are also concerns that speculators could prevent ordinary buyers from being able to buy homes.
Union Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja said the bill has taken into account concerns raised by the building community. ‘It will be a balanced kind of Bill, as on one hand we do not want consumers should be put into any difficulty and on the other hand, we definitely do not want to throttle the real estate industry,’ she explained.
