Realty Act notified in West Bengal

The state government notified the West Bengal Housing Industry Regulation Act (HIRA) 2017, nine months after it was passed in the assembly. However, the Act will remain toothless till a regulator is appointed, regulations are framed and a website is created where information on housing projects are uploaded and appellate tribunals are set up for resolving builder-buyer disputes within 120 days. Several states, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, have set up the regulatory authority and have a number of housing projects registered under the Act. Already 21 states have notified the RERA rules and 13 have active online portals. The notification of HIRA formalizes the confirmation with RERA, a central Act aimed at ushering in transparency and reliability in the housing sector. Now, all housing projects above 500 sq m or eight apartments need to be registered with the state regulator. But with the regulator yet to be appointed, little changes on the ground. The Bengal chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (Credai-Bengal), the umbrella body of builders in the state, welcomed the notification and hoped the process would now be expedited as the state was way behind others in compliance.