The two-year-long wait for apartment buyers has finally come to an end as registrations have begun. So far, three apartments have been registered.
The registration of apartments was put on hold from May 22, 2022, because of the absence of a RERA-compliant rule, following a direction from the Orissa High Court. Later, the state government came up with the Odisha Apartment (Ownership and Management) Bill in April 2023.
Thereafter, the government notified the Apartment (Ownership and Management) Rules on February 16, 2024.
Even after that, owners couldn’t get their apartments registered for four months.
What caused the delay?
“The requirement of the Odisha Apartment (Ownership and Management) Act, 2023 is that the registration can be done if the endorsement of the competent authority is in the deed. We are registering the apartments of those who are coming with that,’ said Gyana Ranjan Sahu, District Sub Registrar, Khordha.
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“Odisha has become the first state where deed registration has started and the registration of land in the name of association has also started. It is a matter of great pride for us,” said Bimalendu Pradhan, a Real Estate activist.
Meanwhile, the Real Estate Association alleged that the old buyers are facing a lot of problems due to the new Apartment (Ownership and Management) Rules coming into effect. In the new rules, both the new and old apartments have been included. The owners of old apartments can’t sell their apartments as they were registered before 2017 hence not compliant with the new rules.
As a result, about 10,000 apartments are still waiting to be registered and the treasury is also losing about Rs 2,000 crore as revenue.
So, the association demanded that the old apartments (before 2017) should be excluded from the purview of the new rules.
“The house owners in old apartments can’t sell their houses. The government is also losing a huge amount of revenue. People are purchasing flats in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi or Mumbai but not in Bhubaneswar. This is so because rules are changing here more frequently,” said D S Tripathy, Chairman, CREDAI Odisha.