Restitutionary Remedies, Statutory Consumer Protections, and Regulatory Governance in Residential Real Estate: RERA Regime in Keralam, India

Abstract

Housing and residential real estate (RRE) transactions in India were historically governed by the doctrine of caveat emptor, leaving home-buyers with weak and fragmented remedies under common law contracts or general civil litigation. The enactment of the flagship Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) marked a structural paradigm shift toward statutory restitution, unjust enrichment prevention, and administrative accountability. This paper formulates the Restitutionary Real Estate Mismatch (RREM) Framework to examine how project delays, structural defects, and asymmetric buyer-promoter contracts trigger statutory restitution under Section 18 of RERA, disgorgement of unearned developer profits, and monetary refunds with compounding interest. Utilizing national (India) and sub-national (Keralam) level data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Housing Bank (NHB), Kerala Real Estate Regulatory Authority (K-RERA), State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC-Kerala), and landmark judgments of the Supreme Court of India, this study explores the statutory intersection of property rights, unjust enrichment law, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) integration, and sustainable ESG disclosures. Strategic legal and policy interventions are proposed to resolve conflicts between RERA and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), streamline revenue recovery execution, and enhance consumer protection in the digital era.