August 13, 2007	Monday	Rajab 28, 1428

RAWALPINDI, Aug 12: There is no limit to how crazier it can get in the real estate business. A new set of cheaters has emerged on the scene who have neither any land nor any business in the field but who are going door to door selling application forms for purchasing plots in posh localities. On checking it was found the societies offering the property have no existence on land record of the revenue departments.

Though the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) has recently warned people against unregistered and illegal housing societies in its controlled area by identifying them, the case of the application form vendors needs to be brought to the notice of the general public as well as the authorities.

The forms are being sold for Rs100 to Rs150 per applicant. As is usual for residential schemes these forms do not give any scheme or schedule of payment for the plots.

Officials at RDA told Dawn they had received complaints from victims of such bogus schemes. They said the advertisers were selling the documents of these fake housing schemes in streets, public parks and through agents going from door to door in well to do neighbourhoods promising plots to winners of lucky draws.

The director-general RDA Brig (retired) Pervez Mehmood Khan had recently warned people against investing in such landless housing schemes as the authority can take action only against those housing schemes which are registered with RDA. The best way to avoid being cheated by bogus land advertisers was ask them to show documents of registration with RDA.

Interestingly there is no authority in the city to check this fraud and take action against the fraudsters. Stalls of such fake housing societies are openly doing business in Shamsabad Public Park. The price of the forms has been reduced to snare the gullible poor from Rs50 and Rs30, an amount the needy don’t mind to waste in a gamble of luck.

The cost of rented accommodation has been pushed up so high people are easily duped by fawning property dealers. Recently a senior professor at Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC) committed suicide after failing to get his plot in an Adiala Road scheme.

He had paid up his life’s savings to buy this land.