BENGALURU: The Karnataka Real Estate Regulatory Authority (K-RERA) court has authorised home buyers to take over the role of actual promoters of a 65-apartment residential project on Sarjapur Road. It also gave them the green signal to use the sum they would mobilise through the sale of 10 apartments they are building within the premises.
A full bench, comprising Chairman HC Kishore Chandra and Neelamani N Raju and Gurijala Ravindranadha Reddy on Monday (July 17) gave its verdict in favour of the Vivansaa Aurigaa Apartment Owners Cooperative Society Limited. The home buyers had filed a case against the original promoter, Vijicon Properties, and 21 others including private and public sector banks after their project was abandoned by the builder.
The firm, Pradeep Kumar PK & Associates, represented the home buyers in the case. Advocate Pradeep Kumar told TNIE, “As per the agreement entered into with the buyers on June 30, 2016, the project was supposed to be delivered by July 2017. Barring the initial 10 per cent to be paid for the project, the buyers had to pay the EMI only after the houses were handed over. Each 2 BHK house cost over Rs 40 lakh at that time.”
The promoter ran out of funds and the project remained abandoned from March 2020 till December 2022. “Only 50% of the project had been completed. The banks had offered funding under the subvention scheme whereby the loans taken by buyers were credited directly to the builder. They had used it all up to pay the pre-EMI period of the buyers and had no funds to complete the project,” the advocate explained.
The real problem erupted when the banks started hounding the buyers asking them to pay up the loans. “Many were NRIs. Orders to attach their properties in Delhi, Gurgaon and so on were issued. We had to approach K-RERA for protection. It has really come to the rescue of buyers,” he said.
As advised by RERA, a cooperative society was formed with 30 of the home buyers who had paid their money fully or who were paying their EMIs on time. “Each of them pooled in over Rs 9 lakh and the sanction plan was modified by approaching the civic authorities concerned. The sale of the ten flats getting completed would give them enough funds to complete the project,” the advocate said.