The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) has made it clear that developers are not entitled to sell/ allot open parking space to homebuyers. The open parking space is part of the common areas of a real estate project as per the RERA Act and are provided free floor space index (FSI).
According to the MahaRERA, the notification was issued following cases of disputes over the exact location of the parking space vis a vis the apartment. To prevent such occurrences, developers will be henceforth required to specifically mark the garage, open and /covered parking space in the real estate project in accordance with the approved/sanctioned plans and tag it to the apartment to which it is allotted.
Further, the regulatory body has directed that the garage/ covered parking space when sold/ allotted for monetary consideration, the type, numbers, size as well as the place where such garage/ covered parking space is situated should be mentioned in the agreement for sale. It should be annexed to the agreement.
Anand Gupta, chairperson, Housing and RERA committee of Builders Association of India (BAI), said that earlier, there was a lot of ambiguity on the selling of parking space. However, the RERA Act has clearly mentioned that developers are only supposed to sell parking spaces in podiums, stilts and basements. “By issuing such a circular, MahaRERA is bringing transparency in the realty sector. In Maharashtra, over 29,000 real estate projects are ongoing. In a few cases, developers may have wrongly sold out the open parking spaces which needs to be corrected”, he asserted.
In recent times, the MahaRERA has come up with several new norms, like developers are supposed to provide project updates, along with the sale of houses on a quarterly basis. Also, it will conduct training and certification of real estate agents, for which a steering committee has been set up. By doing so, it desires to bring a certain level of consistency in the practices of real estate agents, enhance knowledge, awareness of regulatory framework and practices. Besides, hundreds of projects have been blacklisted, restricted from sale and advertisements over failure to update the projects from a long time. Gupta said, “In the next two years, major changes will happen in the realty sector, given how MahaRERA is implementing new norms. The trust between the homebuyer and developer will improve".
MahaRERA was established on May 1, 2017
Registered
Total projects - 30,599
Projects completed - 7,245
Agents - 30,751
Total complaints – 15,908
In hearing - 5,331(35%)
