Problem is solely about transparency of developers
CL Jose
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Throughout the rules worded for the Kerala Real Estate Regulatory Authority (K-RERA), the measurement of apartments has been expressed in terms of carpet area.
But interestingly, the developers don’t seem to be amused with the idea of doing their business talks in terms of carpet area
Reasons are quite obvious, at least for the keen observers.
Though all the buyers invariably sign up with the developers ultimately for the carpet area they stand to receive, the talks at the time of marketing and selling always revolve around ‘built-up’ area or ‘super built-up’ area.
Even most advertisements taken out by the developers merely talk about the number of rooms and total price of the apartments.
The problem is solely about the transparency or probity of the developers, as expressing area of an apartment in terms of ‘built-up’ area or ‘super built-up’ area causes the unsuspecting buyers to believe that the apartment is much larger than what he/she signs up for in carpet area.
What’s carpet area?
According to the Kerala Real Estate Regulatory Authority (K-RERA), carpet area is the net usable floor area of an apartment, excluding the external walls, areas under services shafts, exclusive balcony or verandah area, and exclusive open terrace area.
Again to ‘decode’ it further, carpet area measures the area within the walls of a usable property or wall-to-wall area. The built-up area measures the Carpet area plus the area occupied by the walls and other areas within the property.
Whereas, the super built-up area measures the built-up area plus the share of common areas developed in the whole project, which is called the loading factor in the real estate parlance.’
In short, carper area is essentially 30 to 40 per cent lesser in space compared with super built up area in a typical residential project with amenities including pools, club house, etc and open space.
Talking to businessbenchmark.news, a property expert said that though developers can’t be accused of misleading or cheating buyers by doing the initial sales talks in terms of built-up or super built-up area, certain unpleasant shocks can well be pre-empted by opening the sales talks in carpet area itself.
A top official with RERA told businessbenchmark.news that the Authority is likely to mandate the developers soon to issue a standard allotment letter to the prospective buyers well before signing the agreement so that the buyers get to realize well in advance for how much carpet area he/she is going to do the final agreement.
This letter also has to feature the conditions for cancellation of an agreement as well as what he/she will lose in case he/she backs out from a sales agreement.
