Real estate frauds reach a new high

MRIDULA CHUNDURI / TNN / Sep 19, 2006, 03:07 IST

Text Size

Small
Medium
Large

Several thousand people have been duped by realtors and as a result, cases are piling up at the AP State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

HYDERABAD: M Prakash Rao (name changed), a businessman from Srikakulam district, wanted to buy a plot in the city.
So with a dream in his eyes to own a piece of land in 'Happening Hyderabad', he arrived in the city, went on a 'site visit', looked at a few ventures and settled for a plot in Hayathnagar.
Little did he know that within a year of paying 'easy instalments' to own the dream plot, his real estate dealer would close the shop and scoot with his money.
Several thousand people like Prakash Rao have been duped by realtors and as a result, cases are piling up at the AP State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

At present, the commission is dealing with at least 1,200 complaints related to real estate. In most cases, there are no title deeds. There is no proof of land transfer too from the owner to the real estate dealer.
"The realtors just pay some advance to the land owners, show the receipt as proof of the land transfer and sell plots. Even if the land has proper title deeds, more often than not the layout is not approved by authorities like Huda and the consumer has made a bad investment," AP State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission president justice I Venkatanarayana told TOI on Monday.

The commission gets about 10 cases on the real estate deals every month where the settlement awarded is up to Rs 20 lakh.
The areas most notorious for such bogus realtors are in Hayathnagar mandal and on the Vijayawada and Kurnool national highways. Some cheats based in Hayathnagar sell the same plots to different people.
They show a piece of land and claim a new venture is coming up and start collecting money in instalments from three to four different customers for the same plot and when the time comes for registering the plot, they just vanish.
"Double registration is a common headache in the real estate dealings in this part of the city. In some cases, the realtors sell plots to one set of customers and take money from them.
Six months down the line, they change the name of the venture and offer it to a fresh set of customers," Saroornagar police sub-inspector G Hanumanth Rao, who has been dealing with such cases for some time now, said.
Most customers are not from the city, but people from districts who in their eagerness to own plots in Hyderabad come here and blindly believe anybody who offers to sell.
They keep sending cheques, but do not come down regularly to check on their plots, making it easier for the realtors to cheat, he added.
One of the biggest real estate frauds in the city is being investigated by the Saroornagar police. K Manoj Reddy of Surya Real Estate allegedly cheated over 3,500 people (12 ventures).
He collected about Rs 5 crore, in several equated monthly instalments, from them and vanished into thin air when the time came for registering plots on the names of the buyers.
Ironically, police are still looking for victims to come forward and give evidence against the realtor.

End of Article