Success rate of conciliations between homebuyers & developers is around 35% to 50%, says MahaRERA

Around 35 to 50% of the conciliations conducted by MahaRERA for resolving disputes between homebuyers and real estate developers were successful. Around half of them go for hearings after conciliation fails, according to the data shared by MahaRERA.

Since the inception of the conciliation forum in 2018, MahaRERA has handled over 1,200 cases, according to the data of MahaRERA.

“The conciliation is doing well and the success rate is around 35% to 50%. It is much faster and there are no appeals or additional as things get closed. Some cases come back to us, but we do cater to those. Around 50% of the cases getting sorted, which is fairly good,” Ajoy Mehta, Chairman of MahaRERA told Moneycontrol.

Out of 1,231 conciliation cases handled by the conciliation forum of MahaRERA, 1,061 have been completed and 170 are under the process. However, the success rate of conciliation is between 35% to 50%, according to MahaRERA.

What is a conciliation forum?

Under Section 32 (g) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 201,6, MahaRERA is required to facilitate amicable conciliation of disputes between developers and homebuyers through dispute settlement forums set up by the consumer or promoter associations.

The forum consists of representatives of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat and the promoters’ association representatives. Under this forum, disputes between homebuyers and developers under the RERA Act are taken up.

This is after homebuyers register themselves with the conciliation forum. Post this, once the developer accepts the request to settle disputes at the conciliation forum, the conciliation forum of MahaRERA undertakes hearings.

In cases where the developers do not accept conciliation, the homebuyer is free to file a complaint with the MahaRERA. However, after a dispute is settled at the conciliation forum and if there is non-compliance by the developer or homebuyer, the concerned party is free to file a complaint with MahaRERA.

Complaints:

Overall, in terms of complaints filed by homebuyers against developers or vice-versa, the MahaRERA has reported 24,379 complaints of which orders have been passed in more than 16,474 cases from Maharashtra.

How to increase the success rate?

According to members of the conciliation forum, the success rate of conciliation can be increased only when all the involved parties come with a mindset of settlement adding that the base of any mediation or conciliation is party-centric.

“A conciliator is a mediator and all the parties have to come together from the point of view of settlement. The hearings at the forum do not happen on merits and all concerned parties have to come with that mindset considering the success of conciliation is also depending on that,” Hitesh Thakkar, Partner at Prem Group and also conciliator of MahaRERA conciliator forum on behalf of NAREDCO- apex body of developers.