Despite the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority’s directive to realty developers to set up a complaint redressal cell for their respective projects, only 195 projects across the state have complied and established the grievance redressal cell.
The regulator has undertaken a review of the same and is now planning to initiate action against the developers that are not in compliance with the directive issued in August 2023 with an objective of resolving homebuyers’ grievances.
As per the regulator’s directive, these cells need to have at least one complaint redressal officer dedicated towards this work. Compliance with this provision will be an important criterion in the proposed evaluation of projects by the regulatory authority.
“The establishment of trust in the service sector is necessary for the growth of business. So far, the construction sector has only been recognised as a product sector. Now it has started to grow as a service sector. In such a case, it is the need of the hour to have a grievance redressal mechanism in place. MahaRERA has given instructions to establish a grievance redressal cell in every project and has asked the stakeholders to take prompt action to further the sector’s credibility,” said Ajoy Mehta, chairman, MahaRERA.
The homebuyer usually interacts with the sales and marketing team of the project while purchasing or registering the property. However, if there are any issues that arise later, these homebuyers are not aware of any project-specific mechanism to resolve the problems.
As a result, the homebuyer faces difficulties in getting their complaints resolved promptly, leading to misunderstandings and grievances even after project’s completion. This lack of communication can have a bearing on the project’s timeline.
The regulator had highlighted that if all the developers set up a dedicated grievance redressal cell for their respective projects, these issues can be kept under control as the complainant will get official and reliable information on time.
The details of the redressal cell including the officers, their names, and coordinates should be prominently displayed at the project site as well as the developer’s website.
