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Mumbai: The Forum for People’s Collective Efforts (FPCE) is sounding the alarm about misleading real estate ads in Maharashtra. They’ve written to the Secretary of Consumer Affairs, pointing fingers at MahaRERA for not taking strong enough action against developers who trick flat buyers with false claims.

According to a report from the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), over 1,000 out of 2,115 real estate ads were found to be misleading. That’s a huge number! Even though MahaRERA teamed up with ASCI to tackle this issue, the penalties for offenders are just too light to make a real difference.

Advocate Anil Dsouza, from the MahaRERA Bar Association, says that despite clear rules, many builders are still bending the truth in their ads. He believes that tougher penalties are essential to curb this behavior. The first case of its kind involved an unregistered agent in Chembur who was promoting projects that weren’t even registered.

Abhay Upadhyay, president of FPCE, added that the fines are so small that builders just see them as a cost of doing business. He pointed out that the images in ads often don’t match the actual projects, and QR codes frequently lead to incorrect information. This is a real headache for homebuyers.

Ramesh Prabhu, founder of the Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association, echoed these concerns. He believes that MahaRERA should take stronger action against misleading ads, including possibly canceling project registrations. He also suggested that they should publish details of these misleading ads online to help buyers make better choices.

In short, the situation is pretty concerning, and it looks like more needs to be done to protect consumers in the real estate market.