Page 28 - RERA Performance Report 2020

The U.P. RERA has created awareness and educative campaigns for all stakeholders
covering all forms of media i.e. print, electronic, social, and outdoor media. Identification
of need, target audience, and desired outcomes are essential towards designing an
effective outreach strategy. Keeping these objectives in mind, the Authority has decided
to create awareness and engagement programs for stakeholders, including on-ground
campaigns and direct media messaging.
28 U.P. RERA PERFORMANCE REPORT 2020
Chapter 3

Amicable settlement of disputes under

Conciliation Forum

By Ravindra Dutt Paliwal (NCR Conciliator) &
Surya Prakash Misra (Lucknow Conciliator)

Need for Conciliation Forum

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 seeks to protect homebuyers
and ensure accountability of the real estate developers. The Act establishes a Real Estate
Regulatory Authority (RERA) in each state for regulation of the real estate sector and also
to act as an adjudicating body for the redressal of disputes. RERA has thus become the
most preferred option of home buyers for redressal of grievances, as we see many
complaints being filed before the Authority. While the RERA (Real Estate Regulation and
Development Act) provides a quick and radical redressal system to aggrieved parties, it
offers a tradeoff arrangement as well through a conciliation forum.

In fact, it was realized by the authors of the RERA Act that there was enormous distrust
between the homebuyers and the promoters in the real estate sector. Thus a directive has
been provided under section 32 (g) of the the Act for the Authority to facilitate an
amicable settlement of disputes between the promoters and the homebuyers through
conciliation forums in the presence of participation from homebuyers’ and promoters’
associations.

Accordingly, U.P. RERA, vide its order No. 5166/RERA/2018-19 dated 31st December 2018,
established a Conciliation Forum with the primary objective of resolving the issues
between allottees and builders/developers/promoters amicably. The forum was
established with an intent to save valuable time and resources, and to increase the level
of trust amongst the stakeholders through a transparent and inclusive process of
amicable settlement of disputes.

U.P. RERA has established two conciliation forums, one at Lucknow Headquarters and the
other at the NCR Regional Office, Greater Noida, under the guidance of Conciliator and
active participation from the representatives of consumer groups and promoter
associations. The idea turned out to be highly successful. Riding on the rate of success of
the conciliation meetings, more and more homebuyers and developers are approaching
the forum instead of initiating formal legal proceedings before the RERA Benches. All
types of complaints — related to refund, compensation, or possession are being filed with
conciliation forums. Meetings organized by the forums have witnessed very lively and
animated discussion among the representatives of the homebuyer associations,
promoter associations such as Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of
India (CREDAI) and National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO), the
promoters, the home buyers or their representatives and the Conciliator. With the
conciliation forum in place, complaints have been resolved more swiftly than before,
while ensuring greater level of satisfaction to the litigating parties saving valuable time
involved.