Pune: Riverdale Residences Project Faces Further Delays, Flat Owners Lodge Complaint With Police Against Builder Duville Estates
Sumit Singh
Kharadi, 25th March 2023: Owners of the Duville Riverdale Residences project, a premium 3BHK 23-story housing complex in Kharadi, Pune, are demanding answers from Duville Estates about the consistent delays in acquiring the OC (Occupation Certificate) for E2 and E1 Towers.
Several RERA complaints and reconciliation requests have been filed by flat owners, but no concrete steps have been taken by RERA to resolve the situation. In response, the owners have lodged a complaint with the Chandan Nagar police station under Pune police for the registration of a case.
According to the complaint, in 2022, Duville Estates obtained OC for the E3 tower and the first four floors of the E2 tower and provided possession to the respective apartment owners. However, the RERA grace period for six months to provide possession to the remaining apartment owners of E2 and E1 towers ended in August and October 2022, respectively. The compensation period began thereafter, where the builder has to compensate the apartment owners with the interest amount on money given to the builder per RERA law.
“Duville Estates has agreed to give partial compensation of INR 45,000 per month, even when many owners have monthly compensation per RERA law in the range of INR 80,000-100,000. These compensations are not being given to apartment owners on a monthly basis, and Duville Estates maintains they will adjust this compensation amount only at the time of possession and Full & Final Payment.
Duville Estates has started offering soft possession for interior designing purposes to apartment owners of E2 and E1 towers who want to pay Full & Final due payment by March 31st, 2023. For such owners, Duville Estates is offering monthly compensation of INR 60,000 starting from March 2023 onwards.”
The flat owners further said the delay in acquiring the OC for E2 and E1 towers is a significant concern for the apartment owners. Duville Estates has not been forthcoming with details about why the OC is delayed. Almost every month, a new target date is published by Duville Estates and missed. Apartment owners believe that several NOCs, including Fire NOC, are not yet obtained by Duville Estates for Riverdale Residences. Additionally, the low-income housing project has yet to be handed over to PMC. The work progress on these fronts has been slow, resulting in almost a year-long delay in acquiring the OC.
Response of Duville Estates Pvt. Ltd:
“The project Riverdale Residences is registered with RERA and currently has a project completion date of 30th October 2023. The RERA Certificate as proof thereof is enclosed herewith. It is common knowledge that the Covid-19 lockdowns and related disruption interrupted work, especially in the real estate business due to the migration of labour. In addition to this the entire supply chain network was disrupted due to the Ukraine conflict, price fluctuations and other force majeure events.
Taking all this into consideration, RERA has provided us with a completion date of 30th October 2023. Despite the project completion date being over 7 months away, as a responsible developer, we have offered to pay customers who have earlier possession dates in their agreements with compensation. This was calculated considering various provisions of the Real Estate Regulation Act, 2016 (RERA) and after series of discussions with the officer bearers of the Riverdale Residences Society. We consider the compensation offered to be as per the provisions of RERA and being very fair. It is for this reason that over half the customers have already accepted in writing the compensation offer made by us.
However, it seems that regrettably a few customers are deliberately trying to mis-interpret the provisions of RERA to extract higher compensation from the Developer. We would also like to mention that the flats are fully completed and were ready for handover well within the contractual possession timelines. However, some allied infrastructure is getting delayed. We are confident that we will be able to complete this work and obtain the OC shortly. We understand that this may cause frustration to our customers, however, we are and will continue to provide adequate compensation for any delay that may be caused. The fact that the Developer continues to move ahead with the project works at full force with no stoppage should provide customers with the clear confidence of the delivery of the project.
We are confident that we will be able to provide possession of these buildings shortly. MahaRERA is the appropriate forum to address any grievance a customer might have. By going to the Police these minority customers are merely trying to pressurise us to provide them with alternate compensation, even though more than 50% of the customers have accepted what we have provided.”
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