The TN RERA Appellate Tribunal has told the House of Hiranandani, a developer, that it must register its large township with many towers as one single project, not separately for each tower. This decision comes because the developer tried to avoid following the rules of the RERA Act by registering towers individually.
The tribunal made this decision after House of Hiranandani appealed a 2022 ruling by the Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority (TN RERA) that sided with the residents’ group. The tribunal explained that the whole township, which started in 2012 before the RERA Act was introduced in 2016, is still not finished. Therefore, it should have been registered as one project from the start.
The developer has finished the first part of the township, which includes six towers, and is currently working on the second part, which will have seven towers. However, they only registered three towers from the second part as separate projects. The tribunal pointed out that even though one of these towers, named Amalfi Tower, was registered by itself, it’s actually part of the bigger township plan. This was acknowledged by the developer in their documents, but they tried to claim it was a standalone project by leaving out certain facts.
After the developer lost to the residents’ group in TN RERA in 2022, they took their case to the appellate tribunal. Their township covers 120 acres in Egattur, Chengalpattu district, Tamil Nadu.
Additionally, the tribunal said that the developer must give back 70% of a “township corpus fund” they collected from each homebuyer in the second phase, which adds up to Rs 1.23 crore. The residents’ association (RWA) should get this money back, along with interest, since the developer had already paid it when they first appealed last year.
In a similar situation, Karnataka’s RERA had previously told a real estate company in Bengaluru that a big township with different phases should have separate residents’ groups for each phase. This is to make sure money matters, like maintenance charges, are handled transparently. They also said the developer should give the collected funds to the appropriate residents’ groups.
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