Aparna Shelters Private Limited — Not returned part booking advance despite not having completed booking

Address: Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

This is a complaint against M/s. Aparna Shelters Private Ltd. having its registered office at #802, Astral Heights, 6-3-352/2&3, Road No. 1, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. They have floated a villa project called Aparna Canopy Lotus at Gundlapochampally village, Medchal mandal of Rangareddy district, Andhra Pradesh(now part of the new Telangana state). I had blocked villa number 23 in the phase 1 of the this villa project on 8th Jan 2014 by paying a part booking advance of Rs. 1, 00, 000/-(Rupees One lakh only). Please note that they had asked me for an advance of Rs. 3 Lakhs for the booking and I was not prepared to pay the whole amount without seeing the Agreement of Sale They also did not sign the booking form and hence the booking was never completed. After paying the part booking advance, they shared the draft agreement of sale. I figured out that the agreement of sale contains one sided, arbitrary and illegal clauses and hence I decided to backout. Some of the clauses I was concerned about were Eg 1 "If the Purchaser/s intends to transfer the Schedule - B Property to a third party prior to completion of Primary Sale of all the Villas of the Project, the Agreement Holder/Developer at their sole discretion may permit, such transfer if the Agreement Holder/Developer is satisfied about the willingness and ability of the third party to comply with all the terms and conditions of the scheme. The Agreement Holder/Developer may allow such transfer as a special case, if the Purchaser/s pays an amount of Rs.5, 00, 000/- or such other amount as may be fixed by the Agreement Holder/Developer from time to time, towards the transfer fee, in addition to the amounts payable under this Agreement and the Agreement Holder/Developer shall refund the balance amount to the Purchaser/s. " With regard to the above clause, please note that the Phase 1 has only 29 villas and there are a further 63 villas in the Phase 2 of the project which was not even approved for construction. Accepting the above clause would mean I will not be able to sell the property for an indefinite period of time (till Aparna sells all 92 villas) Eg 2 "If the Purchaser/s intends to withdraw from the scheme or commits default as mentioned above, the Agreement Holder/Developer is entitled to cancel this Agreement, without any notice to the Purchaser/s and alienate the same to the third party after deducting the cancellation charges of 10% of the total Sale Consideration mentioned in Clause (1) above. The Agreement Holder/Developer at its discretion, refund the balance of the amounts already paid by the Purchaser/s, after the completion of the entire project or on alienating the said villa to a third party whichever is later, after deducting the cancellation charges @ 10% on the total sale consideration including cost of amenities. If the amounts paid by the Purchaser/s falls below the aforesaid amount due towards cancellation charges or as the case may be, the Agreement Holder/Developer is entitled to recover liquidated damages from the Purchaser/s by all means. " The lawyer I referred confirmed that this clause is one sided and hence illegal Eg 3 "This Agreement shall be in force notwithstanding the execution of the sale deed in respect of the Schedule B Property and shall become void only after payment of all the amounts due under this Agreement and accordingly, the possession will be delivered to the Purchaser/s." Ideally, The agreement of sale should become null and void after the execution of sale deed. I communicated to them via email on 16th February 2014 that I am backing out due to illegal, one sided and arbitrary clauses in the Agreement of sale and I requested them to refund my part advance of Rs. 1 Lakh as my booking was not completed. Despite several reminders over the last 5 months, they have not refunded the money. I request the 'Consumer Complaints Forum' help in getting back my hard earned money.