An Overview of 'RERA' in India: A Regulatory Shift

In the present era, the real estate and construction sectors play a crucial role in the process of development especially infrastructure. After agriculture it is the second largest employment sector. It includes of 4 sub-sectors namely; Housing, Retail, Commercial and Hospitality. Surprisingly, in spite of being such an important sector of the economy, the real estate sector has unregulated and controlled by local government with certain set of own rules and regulations for real estate development. Taking benefit of country"s abysmal judicial system, the developers have been taking property buyers for a ride, and putting real estate sector on the bottom of customer protection and satisfaction pyramid. With the things getting bad to worse, it has let to big hue and cry, making urgent need for a unified regulatory legal framework to protect customers" interest RERA is the solution. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 is an Act of the Parliament of India which seeks to protect home-buyers as well as help to boost investments in the real estate industry. Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha passed the bill in March 2016. The RERA Act came into force from 1 May 2016. The objectives of this act are to Ensure Transparency & Efficiency in real estate sector in regards to sale of plot, apartment, building or real estate projects; to protect consumers in real estate sector; to begin judge the means for quick argument redressal and to set up Appellate Tribunal to pay attention fir appeals through a proper mechanism via RERA. Before implementation of RERA, the sector was lacking in clarity on carpet area, with practice of monopoly power of the part of builders concerning to loading, rates, sort of payments. With n number of frauds, unclear picture of project, ownership, approval etc. An attempt has been made through this paper to study RERA as a reform in Real Estate industry and to know its advantages, disadvantages with offering suggestions.