\'Furnish flat deeds, else face action\'

19th January, 2015

$\'Furnish flat deeds, else face action\'$

Delhi/NCR
In a stern message, the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has told all the builders in the city that police cases will be filed against them if they do not furnish the deeds of declaration (DoDs) to flat owners immediately.

"The approximately 250 builders have been told that the GDA will file first information reports (FIRs)against them if they fail to furnish DoDs to all flat buyers, under the Uttar Pradesh Apartments Act, 2010. They can be booked under Section 25 of the Act, which carries a punishment of up to three years in jail for violators," said Authority's officer on special duty Sri Prakash Gupta.

He added that GDA chairman Santosh Yadav met representatives of Ghaziabad's builders on January 17.

"The builders contended that they had no need to file DoDs in cases of flats which were sold before the Act came into effect. But, the GDA told them that it was indeed necessary for DoDs to be filed in all cases, including those of flats constructed before the Act. We will take comprehensive action if the DoDs are not filed forthwith," he said.

DoDs are documents which provide all details of flats sold to buyers, including the encumbrances, plans, structural, architectural and layout data, besides all NOCs required for building the complexes. These details have to be furnished in a format provided for in the Act.

Without these details, flat owners are unable to seek redress against the builders who sell them the flats, as they do not even have the details of what was actually supposed to be sold to them.

According to the chief of the Ghaziabad Federation of Flat Owners' Associations, Alok Kumar, "Without these complete details, flat owners cannot even hold elections for the associations of flat owners as the number of votes each member has is dependent on the size of the property owned by him."

Significantly, all registrations of the sales and purchases of flats had on November 3 last been stopped on the advice of GDA chief "as the registration was useless to the buyers without complete details of the flats."