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Sunday, 5 January 2014

Precautions to be taken by purchaser of house property while drafting sale agreements


Real estate developers, quite easily are able to hoodwink the poor homebuyers by plotting a sales agreement that works in their favor. Sales agreement or customer agreement is a legal document which confirms the deal between the dealer and buyer. Both the party signs the agreement indicating that they agree upon the terms and conditions mentioned in the sales deed. Developers, often deceitfully mispresent some terms and conditions that make the homebuyers instinctively fall into the trap set up by them. Most of the time, the sale agreement does not include essential clauses and misguide the customers. Instead of benefiting the customers, the sale agreement leads to heavy loss. There is no fixed format of sales agreement, it varies from city to city, developer to developer and so on. Hence as a homebuyer you have to be very cautious about each move you take. After all, home-buying is a huge investment, any wrong step or hasty decision can cause big loss.

Here are some essential and critical points that a customer should check and understand before entering into a sales agreement:
Project delivery or possession date:
Even though builders mention the possession date in their agreement, most of them are tricky. Homebuyers feel that the developers are quite sincere but they don’t understand that they are unknowingly being trapped. Majority of the sales agreement, does not mention the exact date of possession, they normally put up statement like ‘project will be delivered within xyz days from the date of agreement’ or within xyz years from the start of construction. Homebuyers get mystified and fail to determine the exact date of project completion, which leads to further problems.
Mispresenting the area:
As per mentioned in the agreement, customers visualize a spacious and large home but in reality they are endowed with homes that are much smaller than their imagination, this is mainly because of the mispresentation of the area. Most of the developers mention super built-up area or built-up area in the agreement instead of the carpet area or the loading space due to which homebuyers end up owning a home that doesn’t fit their mind’s eye.
Holding charges:
If the project is delayed, the customer does not get any compensation but if the customer does not take the possession of flat then he/she is liable to pay the holding the charges. This point clearly indicates that sales agreement totally works in the favor of builders.1
Cost appreciation clause:
Sometimes the buyers unintentionally pay charges more than earlier agreed upon to the developers. Well this situation arises when the developers try to incur the expenses of the delayed projects from the customers, to insulate from the market risks.
Fixed payment date:
Imagine you pay 80% of the project cost but to your shock, the project is still in its initial phase, this can be the worst thing that can happen to the homebuyer. Normally, sales agreement mention a particular date on which the customer has to make the payment, therefore by hook or by crook, the customer has to make payment even if the project is under-construction. The payment process is completely unrelated to the construction progression.
After-sale services:
As a genuine real estate developer, you have to provide after sale-services like maintenance facilities, c
After-sale services:onstruction warranty etc. to your customers. There are very few developers who mention these services in the sales deed. After-sale services are a prominent clause that has to be mentioned in the sales agreement which is mostly unfocused by developers and neglected by buyers. After presenting the project to the customers, at least during initial period, it is the responsibility of the builder to look after construction defects.
It is really agonizing, if you are cheated while making such a huge investment, finally it is your hard-earned money which is at stake. Therefore, a little cautiousness and foresight will save you from falling into the vicious trap.

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