Realty News Roundup: Unfair Builder-Buyer Contracts Not Binding, Says Consumer Court; World's First Talking Home To Come Up In India

The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) has observed that any unfair trade practice can be challenged by the Commission even if there is a prior agreement between the builder and the buyer. The Commission while hearing a series of cases against Unitech's Vistas project in Gurgaon said that provisions mutually agreed upon in a builder-buyer contract are not sacrosanct. Even though the court has reserved its verdict on the matter, the decision, if ruled by the court, is expected to have far reaching impact on the real estate sector.

Here are the other real estate related news stories of June 2, 2015:

Raheja Developers, one of the largest real estate companies in India, has claimed that it is going to build the world's first talking home where one could give simple commands like 'turn on the lights', 'can you make the temperature higher', etc to the home.  ED of Raheja Developers, Nayan Raheja said that the company has tested the first installed prototypes of this technology and Raheja Ayana ,which has just been launched in Gurgaon, will be the first product to carry this. Industry observers suggest that these are the first signs of technology actually filtering down into the Real Estate Sector.

The Maharashtra government has decided to relax norms for housing societies to enable sale of flat to a person outside the category for which the flat may have been originally reserved. Revenue minister Eknath Khadse said that the decision was taken after an IAS officer wanted to sell his flat in the controversial Adarsh Housing Society after he was named by CBI in the Adarsh scam. "The land allotted to Adarsh society was reserved for a particular category, the existing law does not permit him to sell his flat to anyone but an IAS officer," Khadse said. "The only condition is that district collector should supervise the transfer of flat. But a society which is entirely reserved for a particular category cannot sell flats to those outside the category," he said.There are more than 14,000 cooperative housing societies in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, where certain number of flats are reserved for SC, ST, disabled persons, etc.

 The state-level bankers committee (SLBC) of Gujarat has agreed to float a special purpose vehicle (SPV) after Gujarat government's intervention to help Low Income Group (LIG) and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) beneficiaries avail of housing loans on easy terms.The SPV will relax the norms for availing of loans by the beneficiaries from nationalized banks to buy houses under the Chief Minister's Housing Scheme.

The Gujarat government is all set to announce a 'redevelopment policy' to initiate building of affordable houses in place of old colonies.The plan is to build 1 lakh affordable houses in cities like Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Vadodara and Surat. This is the first time in Gujarat where a redevelopment policy will be launched.