Outdated Sanctions and RERA

Review on Sipani Royal Heritage, Electronic City, Bangalore

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I had booked a 1bhk flat G303 in Sipani Royal Heritage on March 22. Had never heard of this builder before, but decided to go ahead with this as the prices were budget-friendly compared to other properties in that area. Also, from the outside, it looked like they actually going to give us a Royal looking apartment with all the luxury amenities!

Within a month I had to cancel my booking due to the below reasons:

1. The problem started during my legal verification of the property. My lawyer had added a clause to provide a final OC at the time of possession, which the Sipani team refused to add.

2. On further checks, the lawyer pointed out that their partial OC was given by Village Panchayat, and that they are not authorized to give the OC. Instead, the Anekal Planning Authority(which sanctioned the project plan) should provide the OC. So he hinted there may be deviations due to which the builder hasn't approached APA for OC.

3. I still wanted to check personally, so visited the APA office. They mentioned Panchayat can issue OC, however, Panchayat should take a technical opinion from APA before issuing OC, which they haven't.

4. APA mentioned their sanction was valid only for 2 years from 2017. So it had already expired in 2019. They mentioned the builder has applied for renewal of the sanction, however, it's stuck due to some issues. Moreover, he mentioned for this project the builder needs to file a completely new sanction request, not just a renewal.

5. APA mentioned that without APAs new/renewed sanction, even RERA won't give extension.

6. RERA for the Phase1 of the project already expired in June'22.

7. I rechecked some of the NOCs, even the BESCOM and BSNL NOCs have expired. So, effectively they have no latest sanctions/approvals.

Based on my lawyer's feedback and given all these glaring issues I cancelled my booking within a month(April end). As per their booking form, the refund has to be issued within 30-45 days, but it's been 4 months already and in spite of repeated requests and follow-ups they just returned 20K last month(1Lakh was the booking amount). Last month they promised the entire amount to be returned by end of August. Now they say the remaining amount will be refunded in Sept-Oct, after deducting cancellation charges. They had clearly told me at the time of booking that if the cancellation is due to legal issues or missing paperwork they will refund 100%, and now after 5 months, they have changed their stand. This itself shows how unethical this builder is.

After patiently waiting for 4 months I'm forced to now go to RERA to get my refund. Hopefully, I'll get back my hard-earned money from these cheats someday!

Another important point to highlight is that they are selling Open Surface parking to some of the flats. This is absolutely illegal as per RERA. Open parking comes under a common area which belongs to everyone and can't be sold to individuals!

Sharing my honest experience so that no one else falls prey to this cheat builder! Please spread the word so that such builders are blacklisted and eliminated from the market!

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