Chennai builder fined Rs 17L for delay in handing over property

CHENNAI: Granting relief to two city residents, a consumer court in Chennai ordered a builder to give them Rs 8.5 lakh each as compensation for the inordinate delay in the redevelopment of their property in Nungambakkam into flats. In addition to that, the court also ordered the builder, Bhoomi & Buildings Pvt Ltd, to pay Rs 30,000 to each of the complainant for deficiency in service. The case pertains to a complaint filed by CK Sampath and K Sudarsanam of Nungambakkam in central Chennai, alleging inordinate delay by the builders with whom they signed an agreement for developing their property into flats in November 2016. As per the agreement, the builders had to complete the flats and hand it over within 18 months including a grace period of three months. The complainants said they handed over their property on April 1, 2019 but they got the flats only after five years, on June 1, 2024, which was a delay of 32 months even after adjusting 12 months for the Covid-19-induced lockdown. As per their agreement, the builder had agreed to pay Rs 50,000 per month as compensation for delay, based on which the complainants demanded Rs 16 lakh each and a separate amount as penalty for deficient service. The builder responded that there were issues relating to title of the document which took a year to resolve and that effective handover of the land was October 1, 2019. The case was heard by the Chennai (North) Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum headed by president D Gopinath and members Kavitha Kannan and V Ramamurthy. The forum accepted the builders contention on date of handover of land and delay due to Covid-19. Perusing the documents, they ruled that the flats were handed over on June 3, 2024, as stated by the complainants. Based on their calculations, the forum decided that the actual delay in handing over the flats to the complainants was 17 months and ruled that a compensation of Rs 8.5 lakh per owner had to be paid as per the agreement. They considered 18 months construction time and 21 months as loss due to Covid-19 (April 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021) to arrive at this figure.