The Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh on Monday opposed jail sentence for fraud and deception in housing and land development business.
They preferred financial penalty to the provision for jail sentence in the recently passed real estate development and management act.
Jatiya Sangsad on September 22 this year passed the act providing for punishment, including maximum two years of imprisonment to real estate developers for wrongdoing and forgery and protection of the interests of landowners and buyers.
Rights and green activists have long been demanding a law to protect the rights of the buyers and consumers and to stop unscrupulous practice in the real estate business.
‘We are not rejecting the law outright, but it should be amended by repealing the provision for jail sentence for the sake of steady growth of the housing sector in the country,’ Sultana Shaheda Alam, acting president of REHAB, told a press conference organised by the association at a city hotel on Monday.
She claimed that enforcement of the new law would hinder growth of the housing sector in the country.
‘The provision for jail term is not acceptable…The law would hamper normal activities in the sector and keep real estate businessmen under pressure,’ Shaheda Alam said.
She said there were conventional criminal laws in the country under which unscrupulous businessmen could be punished with jail sentences.
Referring to the alleged irregularities in handing over plot of the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha, the acting REHAB president said, ‘The RAJUK is also a real estate business entity, so why they should not be brought under the law.’
She said the landowners and buyers must also be brought under the provision of punishment for non-compliance with agreements.
When her attention was drawn to the allegations of rampant fraud in the real estate business, Shaheda Alam asked, ‘Can you name a single business where deception and fraud do not exist.’
‘The law has been formulated at a time when the sector is experiencing a kind of sluggishness. We cannot hand over many flats as the government did not give power and gas connections,’ she alleged.
The REHAB leader claimed the association had taken action whenever there had been allegations of violation of its code of conduct against real estate businessmen.
Under the law, all real estate developers have to be registered with the authorities concerned, and an unregistered developer may be imprisoned for two years or fined Taka 10 lakh for advertising in the media any property development project.
If a developer fails to provide utility facilities in line with the prospectus concerned, he or she will be fined Taka 5 lakh, or imprisoned for a year for failing to pay the fine.
Another provision of the bill says a developer will be jailed for three years or fined Taka 20 lakh, or awarded both, for construction of buildings in violation of approved design.
In case a developer does not comply with the contract with landowners or buyers, or keeps construction work unfinished and does not pay compensation for this, it will be considered cheating, says the bill.
A developer may be imprisoned for up to two years or fined Taka 20 lakh, or awarded both for cheating.
