NOIDA: The govt-appointed board of directors at Unitech Group has issued a warning to homebuyers defaulting on payment of dues raised by the company, threatening to halt construction of their flats and even cancel allotments in extreme cases.
The notice comes at a time when construction work has resumed on a number of Unitech projects after almost a decade. The board said it was struggling to continue with the pace of construction in the absence of a steady flow of funds.
A notice to homebuyers by the Unitech board read, “Homebuyers in a majority of the projects are not serious about making timely payments of their balance dues.
It must be understood that it will be extremely difficult for the management to maintain the pace of work and make regular payments to contractors if homebuyers do not make timely payments of their balance dues. If this situation continues, the management will be forced to take two-fold action: (i) to advise the contractors to stop work on the units of homebuyers who default in paying their dues, and (ii) to take recourse to cancellation of allotments.”
Apart from Noida and Greater Noida, work on Unitech projects has resumed in cities like Gurgaon, Ambala, and Bhubaneswar.
Compliance rates on payments in Greater Noida projects have raised concerns.
For instance, homebuyers in Cascades have paid Rs 1.5 crore against a demand of Rs 3.3 crore raised by the board. Other projects, like Heights, have fared worse — with just Rs 4 lakh of a total demand of Rs 71 lakh cleared.
In Habitat, only 4.4% of Rs 12.6 crore demanded by the board has been paid. Horizon has a 25.7% compliance rate, with Rs 2 crore collected out of a total demand of Rs 8.1 crore. Verve, meanwhile, has seen only 12.4% compliance, with Rs 87 lakh of Rs 7 crore paid.
Neighbouring Gurgaon is relatively better.
In Escape, the board has received almost half the payment, with Rs 47 lakh cleared out of a demand of Rs 1 crore. Sunbreeze, meanwhile, has seen a better compliance rate of 78.5%, with Rs 18.3 crore paid from a total demand of Rs 23.2 crore. Vistas reached a compliance rate of 76.2%, with Rs 20.2 crore of Rs 26.5 crore cleared.
Citing “unofficial sources”, the Unitech board said it had learnt that many homebuyers were deliberately delaying payments because of the relatively low penalty for non-compliance.
Under the revised payment plan, homebuyers are required to pay a 9% simple interest on overdue amounts, a figure much lower than the interest paid on home loans. “So, it is financially more feasible to pay the penalty. But this delay is severely disrupting construction schedules. Contractors need to be paid regularly so that construction is on track,” a source said.
The notice also highlighted that some buyers did not make payments in the past as well despite demand notices raised by the erstwhile Unitech management, leading to an accumulation of overdue amounts.
It cited two specific examples of homebuyers with large overdue amounts.
In Amber Tower 2 of Unitech Golf and Country Club project in Noida, a homebuyer has an overdue amount of Rs 1.9 crore, according to the board. Even after repeated demand notices, the buyer has only made an initial payment of Rs 23.9 lakh.
In Burgundy Tower 1, another homebuyer owes the company Rs 68.8 lakh even though construction has reached the 30th-floor.
In both cases, the buyers have been asked to pay the entire overdue amount — not instalments — within 30 days to avoid high interest penalties and risk losing cancellation.
