Status as on – 01/05/2021
RERA Authorities from time to time take actions upon the conducts of developers and issue certain guidelines accordingly. Recently, Haryana RERA, Gurugram took some important decisions with respect to the sale of apartments on the basis of carpet area and not super area. It’s a usual real estate practice followed by the developers to cheat homebuyers by selling the units on the basis of super area. Let’s first talk about carpet area and super area.
Carpet area & Super area
As per sec 2(k) of RERA, “carpet area” means the net usable floor area of an apartment, excluding the area covered by the external walls, areas under services shafts, exclusive balcony or verandah area and exclusive open terrace area, but includes the area covered by the internal partition walls of the apartment.”
In simple words, carpet area is the area inside your house on which you can actually lay a carpet and physically move around. The area enclosed within the falls of your apartment. It will include bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, dressing room, stores or any other room along with balconies or staircase within the house.
Super built-up area on the other hand is nowhere mentioned in RERA. RERA does talk about common areas but developers generally mislead homebuyers by confusing them between the two. Builders typically use the loading factor- constructed spaces not exclusively allocated to the buyer on the carpet area, to arrive at super built up area. It may include corridors, the lift lobby, the elevator, club houses, any other common facilities.
Builders use super area as the space measuring unit, to earn more profit by the lack of clarity on space calculation. An innocent homebuyer thinks that he is investing for a big house where in actuality he is not.
Recent guidelines issued by HRERA
According to the recent statement made by members of HRERA, Gurugram, a builder is allowed to sell an apartment only on the basis of carpet area as the concept of super area is vague and used by the developers as per their convenience. The sale of apartments on super area basis shall be treated as fraudulent and unfair trade practice which is totally illegal. In cases of ongoing projects where the promoter had allotted apartments as per super area basis, before establishment of Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, the developer will have to clearly mention all the components of super area clearly in the builder buyer agreement (BBA) removing all kinds of vagueness and ambiguity.
Penal proceedings would be initiated against the promoter disobeying the said instructions made by the Authority.
Conclusion
Such time-to-time decisions taken by the RERA Authorities fulfills the very purpose of the enactment of the Act that is to enhance the transparency between builder and buyer. RERA Authorities make sure that developers follow fair trade practices in the real estate sector and if they try to exploit homebuyers in any manner, Authority issues such guidelines to bring the developers back on track.
Disclaimer– The above article is based on the personal interpretation of the related orders and laws. The readers are expected to take expert opinion before relying upon the article. For more information, please contact us at rera@centrik.in
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