Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Buying ready built Villa or apartment in Kerala

There are quite a few people especially Non resident Keralites who prefer buying an apartment or ready to occupy Villa.They do not want to go through hassles of buying land,getting the house designed,and going through patience testing procedures of getting the house constructed.They prefer to go to so called” well known builders” who offer apartments and Villas for sale.While doing so they never come to know of the following and many more important facts.
1.So called well known builder is treated as well known or reputed simply due to the heavy advertisements through media and other modes of communication.There is no agency in Kerala which certifies the quality of work or even credibility or professionalism of the builder.
2.There is not a single builder in Kerala who undertake construction of Villa or apartment with their involvement in every stage of construction.All that you can see in their attractive offices is simply a marketing office and some one to manage works entirely subcontracted.
3.No government agency or any other statutory body is enforcing or even carrying out proper checks on building constructed for structural stability or other quality parameters of the building.So any one can construct as they feel  good .Every building drawing  issued with building permit  by local authorities have a seal in every page of the drawings affixed which reads like this:”Owner of the building and Architect/Licensed Engineer will be fully responsible for structural stability .Corporation/Municipality/Panchayath is not in any way responsible for quality or structural stability of the building.”
4.Almost all the builders cannot even be called as builders as they never do that “building “ part.They subcontract the entire work to some one who  are the real builders and in most of the cases same person or company may be building for rival companies in the market.Only the brand name changes.
5.Over a period of years,so many of the so called reputed builders have simply vanished from the scene in some cases leaving apartment projects in various stages of construction.For example are you still remembering builders like Jyoman ,Penta,Link,Semic? Even now some of the builders are closing shop and leaving the scene by leaving customers to fight cases against banks from whom builder has taken loans.
6.Most of the builders do not even buy the land where they put up apartment projects.They enter into an agreement with land owner offering him few flats when completed and if the project run into problems,both the land owner and those who have booked flats will land up in problems.Builder will not be even traceable anywhere in India.
7.Most of the buyers of flats and villas in Villa projects are either corrupt politicians/government officials to hide their ill gotten money or NRIs.Very few or practically no one will fight against builder legally in case the project is abandoned by the builder due to whatever may be the reasons.
8.Finally actual construction cost has nothing to do with the price offered.Price keep on rising as the project near completion and depending upon market demand and cartel pricing by builder lobby.For example a 2600 sft Villa  near info park at Kakkanad with five cents land in a Villa project now available for sale is offered at Rs.1.25 crores.Actual construction cost with land cost cannot go above Rs.60 lakhs and you can build a better quality house at that cost!
Sometime back an NRI from gulf countries mailed me to enquire about plot for which he entered into a sale agreement with one of these so called"reputed builders" .He was confident that the land purchase agreement against which he paid several instalments of advance payment is safe as the deveoper is a "reputed builder".
When I made enquiries about it,I found out that the developer started selling the land in plots mostly to NRIs by marketing heavily in gulf countries when they found out that they will not get permit for construction for the lake facing plot due to CRZ restrictions!.
So this man has not even bothered to make technical or legal evaluation of the title of property before paying almost 80% of land cost as advance blindly believing on "reputation of the builder"

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