Delay penalty imposed by builder as due date crossed because of sudden death of my MIL.
Hi,
Our builder imposed a late payment penalty as our due date crossed because of sudden death of my MIL. We informed verbally same day and on mail within 5 days. Our loan was in process but we have to leave suddenly thus delaying it. We paid the complete amount within 15 working days of returning after completing the final rites. In between builder didn't informed about any penalty, infact not even after doing complete payment of flat. They stopped our flat fit out work and after pursuing them for a week or two they told us that we owe them a penalty that's why they have stopped our fit out.
I want to know if any grace period is allowed in such "act of God " to complete payment or a buyer is totally at mercy of builder. Infact builder is charging penalty @18% while he paid us a mere sum of 70k for waiting for 3years and is charging around 60k as penalty for a period of one month that too because of death of a family member.
Please help
Asked 4 years ago in Property Law
Religion: Hindu
Delay penalty offered by builder in our case started after 3 months of promised possession till the time they applied OC which was actually received after 1.5 years of their application. So they gave us 70k penalty for the delay for the flat we booked in Feb 2017 and have not received yet. According to a recent court ruling in favour of buyer where the court directed the builder to pay penalty at the same rate of interest as they ask when buyer delay payment as part of fair trade practice. I want to know how it applies in our case.
Asked 4 years ago
One more thing I want to know we bought flat on 10/90plan.. our 90% payment was remaining and we said we will pay once OC is received. Now builder gave us only 15days to complete payment after we raised query about increased GST liability as we booked during 4.5% service tax time. Anyways builder denied following the new tax slab post new GST regime as it was under builder discretion to either follow or deny. So we moved on with loan processing as we wanted to shift asap. But on 17th October my MIL expired and our last date as per 15 days were expiring on 24th October. We mailed the same to them that we will complete the payment once we return after 13 days (final rites). We came back made all the payments builder nowhere informed us about penalty. They started with fit out and even after 60 days they neither proceeded with registry despite paying complete registration amount with lawyer fees nor with handover. When we asked them the reason for delay that didn't gave any answer and still kept wasting time. Then suddenly on 26th january they mailed us that we owe them a penalty. Now my question is we completed payment on 27nov 2019 but builder didn't disclosed our penalty liability. We don't have any right of knowing the penalty before proceeding with final payments. We feel so cheated but builder is not ready to listen.
Asked 4 years ago