A district consumer commission has directed a developer to pay ₹4 lakh hardship compensation (a corpus fund given to the flat owner as the person has to shift elsewhere during reconstruction) with 12% interest per annum and 15% differential rent from October 2017 to a widow for not extending redevelopment benefits to her.
It also ordered ₹50,000 towards mental agony and litigation cost.
In 2013, the complainant and her husband from Matunga signed a redevelopment agreement with Girgaon-based Rohan Developers Pvt Ltd.
The flat possession was promised within 30 months of the agreement but it was delivered in 2017. Also, the developer neither gave the hardship compensation nor paid for the rented accommodation, the woman said before the commission.
The developer contended that since the issue was related to monetary reasons, it should not be treated as a consumer complaint instead dealt as a civil matter.
Woman to get entitled rent at 15% raise
Citing the clauses in the agreement, the commission said the flat was not delivered within stipulated period.
So, the complainant is entitled to get rent at an increased rate of 15% till the time she got the possession. It pointed out that hardship compensation was agreed at a rate of ₹1,000 per sqft of the carpet area.
Both these clauses were not honoured hence the developer “breached the terms and conditions of the agreement” and provided deficient service, said the commission. Passed on November 29, 2022 and uploaded on the official website on Jan 13, the order has to be complied within 45 days from the date of verdict.
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