Everyone dreams of owning a piece of land that they call home. But in a society plagued with weak regulations, this dream often lands aspiring home owners in trouble as they fall prey to real estate developers and ‘property tycoons’.
“They have become a mafia. Weaker regulations encourage them to act without fear. Under the garb of specific laws, they freely fleece the people,” says investor Rashid Mahmood.
According to Mahmood, those who own housing societies dupe buyers by first painting a rosy picture to ‘entrap them’ and then exploit them by adding surcharges and costs.
The victims include people who used their entire life savings – using their pension or gratuity money or raising funds by selling family jewels and heirlooms – in order to own a home.
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There have been multiple instances when the potential house owners find out that either the society was illegal or the owner had invested the collected money elsewhere, delaying development and possession of plots.
The investors are charged repeatedly either in the name of development charges or other expenditures other than the specified plots price as recently surfaced in the case of a society in the suburbs of Rawalpindi.
Social media is seen flooded with hue and cry by investors against such individuals, including a major real estate developer.
“It is very rare that there is any compatibility in actual land price and the price charged by buyers,,” continued Mahmood. He said there was a dire need that government departments maintain the data of files or property sold by housing societies so that developers ‘weren’t free to do as they please’.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 11th, 2023.
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