Bill in JS to stop malpractice in real estate business

The government brought a new law before parliament on Monday for passage that is designed to stop malpractices by the private real estate companies and secure interests of the consumers.
Parliament adjourned until 11am on Tuesday. It recei-ved another bill for passage, adopted an obituary reference and discussed various issues. The Real Estate Development and Mana-gement Bill-2009 sets some regulatory guidelines for running the real estate business and makes provisions for punishment for the breach of the law.
State minister for housing and public works Abdul Mannan Khan tabled the bill. State minister for energy Enamul Haque presented the passage of another bill, ‘Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Bill 2003′. The draft laws were sent to the parliamentary standing committees on housing and public works, and power for further scrutiny. The committees have three weeks to refer those back to the house for passage. The draft bill on real estate says the government will set a new office for enforcing the law.
According to the bill, no developer will start work on projects without the approval of the new office. The developers breaching the law will face two years’ imprisonment or a fine of Tk 10 lakh in default.
The bill also stipulates jail term for two years or a fine of Tk 10 lakh for developers if they advertise about an unapproved project in media. “If any developer, after signing agreements with the customers, does not complete unfinished development work, the government will consider the failure equal to cheating.
“If breached, owner of the defaulting developer will face two years’ imprisonment or Tk 10 lakh in default,” the draft bill says. It says the developers must ensure proper ventilation and all utility services inside the houses and must carry the expenditure of any repair works in the first two years of construction
The bill also says the companies must hand over the records and necessary documents in three months after the customers make the full payment.
“If any developer uses sub-standard construction materials or uses lesser amount of construction inputs, the company owner will face three years’ imprisonment or a financial punishment of Tk 20 lakh,” the bill says.
The developer will face similar punishment if it changes the approved designs of any proejcts.
State minister for energy Muhammad Enamul Huq tabled the energy regulatory commission (amendment) bill-2009 which was sent to the parliamentary standing committee on energy to finalise its recommendations in three weeks.

Courtesy of bdnews24.com, Dhaka