NEW DELHI: Highlighting how more than a third of real estate advertisements examined by the advertising industry’s self-regulatory body were found to be misleading, a pan-India home buyers’ organization has urged the consumer affairs department to issue specific guidelines for Real estate advertising protects the interests of consumers.
The Forum of Popular Collective Efforts (FPCE) has also pointed out the average penalty for misleading advertising by Maharastra RERA is barely Rs 14,000 to Rs 15,000, which is unlikely to deter violators.
In its letter to the department, the homebuyers’ body attaches the findings of a recent report by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), which revealed that around 34% of the advertisements analyzed by it between April and September this year from the real estate sector of Maharashtra were in “direct violation of the law”.
The FPCE said the ASCI has screened the advertisements based on a very limited set of parameters, as advised by MahaRERA. “We have absolutely no doubt that if they had examined the ads from the consumers’ point of view, they would have found 100% of the ads to be misleading,” he said.
The letter mentioned that ASCI had in February signed an agreement with MahaRERA to scan and address misleading advertisements in the real estate sector. “Of the total of 2,115 real estate sector advertisements analyzed by the ASCI, 1,027 misleading advertisements were found, which represents 48.6%. “ASCI achieved rapid compliance in 59% of cases where advertisers modified their ads or removed them completely,” he added.
ASCI reviewed compliance with mandatory disclosure rules, including the presence of registration numbers, QR codes and other essential information.
According to the letter, ASCI flagged about 628 non-conforming advertisements to MahaRERA, which in turn imposed a fine on the real estate developers to the tune of Rs 88.9 lakh. “The average penalty for each real estate developer amounts to a meager Rs 14,000-15,000,” the FPCE said.
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