OVER TWO months after non-compliance to its October order to resolve a dispute over receivables between the landowners and developer of a big-ticket real estate project in Vadodara, Gujarat Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) has ordered a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to open a new bank account and continue with the project bypassing the landowners who have remained “untraceable” and “non-compliant” to the orders.
Due to a dispute between landowners Chaital Bhatt and family and developer Pacificia Group, headed by Rakesh Ishrani, the housing project San Lucas with 200 flats, which is a part of Madrid County township at Bhayali in Vadodara, has remained suspended since 2016. All the flats in the housing project, ranging from 2BHKs to 4BHKs, have been sold since 2014.
Bhatt, sources said, has not transferred the title of the property to the builder citing partial payment of the total amount promised to him towards the cost of the land.
In a detailed order in October, based on 63 clubbed complaints of the allottees at San Lucas, which was scheduled to be completed in 2016, the RERA had ordered a timely completion of the project. The RERA had also chastised Bhatt for “not fulfilling his duty” towards the 200 allottees and appointed a monitoring committee to track the progress of the project. It rebuked the landowner for “carping about non-payment of money for the land” but not appearing for virtual hearings on the pretext of the Covid-19 outbreak.
On December 21, RERA passed a supplementary order directing Dharti Madrid County LLP, an SPV, to “open a new bank account” and continue with the project. “This account shall be operated by the developer Rakesh Ishrani and the co-owner of the land parcel Sunil Patel, and a representative of the allottees Simit Sheth,” the order stated. The order also permitted the transfer of Rs 60 lakh from an existing bank account of the LLP to the new account with the condition that the funds can be used only for the progress of the project San Lucas.“DMC must expedite the filing of the application for extension of the project and submit a bank guarantee of the designated amount as per the earlier order of this Authority of October 12. They will be allowed to withdraw the bank guarantee after payments from the allottees start flowing in and three months’ requirement of funds are available with the DMC,” the order stated.
2020-12-26 16:08:24