Once declared as defaulters, the housing units sold to them would be transferred to the so-called unsold category, said R. Venkataramani, senior advocate and the receiver appointed by the top court. He said a total of 32,000 homebuyers have enrolled so far on the portal created for the Amrapali homebuyers, out of which about 7,000 have paid the full amount.
“We want to ultimately find out who is interested and who is not interested. So we identified people who are not making payments at all post 2016. Roughly that figure now comes to 3,278 people who will be declared as defaulters next month. That means their units will come into the unsold category," Venkataramani said.
“They are not traceable despite the efforts we have made. Either they are not traceable or they are not responding. Whatever means of communications we could have adopted by sending registered post, speed post, mails, letters, WhatsApp messages, everything has been done. In some cases, wherever the addresses are available, physical verifications were also done. So, this number will be treated as unsold," Venkataramani said.
These homebuyers are based out of several parts of the country and a few hundred are abroad, according to records, he said. The exercise of tracking them and reaching out to them took three to four months, he said.
Venkataramani said the total amount paid by the 3,278 homebuyers stood at around ₹200 crore- ₹300 crore. The court receiver said that if any of these buyers, after being declared as defaulters, claim their investments, they would have to be refunded. He said also that the committee plans to have a contingency fund to meet such demands.
Meanwhile, another 7,000 people, who have registered on the platform, have not made any payment since 2019. The committee is taking steps to identify and reach out to them which, Venkataramani said, is expected to be completed in a couple of months.
In 2019, the top court, while ordering the cancellation of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority registration of Amrapali, appointed Venkataramani as the court receiver. It also appointed state-run NBCC Ltd to complete 23 pending projects of Amrapali involving 43,000 stalled homes in Noida and Greater Noida.
Last month, Venkataramani informed the court in a note that the first tranche of ₹150 crore out of the total sum of ₹1,500 crore, meant for construction of stalled Amrapali housing projects, has been paid directly to NBCC.
A consortium of seven banks had agreed to infuse ₹1,500 crore to complete the construction of the unfinished projects.
