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NEW DELHI: The Unitech case has jolted real estate developers on the need to speed up delivery of office and residential property after the company’s directors spent a night in jail on the orders of a court before they obtained bail The sharp slowdown in the realty sector has piled misery on home buyers across the country and within NCR.By some estimates, handover of 3 lakh houses are delayed by up to eight years.Lack of clear guidelines has left home buyers at the mercy of the fine print of the buyer-seller agreement.Apro-consumer realty bill which seeks to set up a regulator and bring transparency in the unregulated segment is pending in Rajya Sabha.Meanwhile, the list of consumer woes has grown.“We booked the apartment in 2009 and were supposed to get it by 2011. It has been a long struggle. We are fighting a legal battle at the National Consumer Redressal Court, but it is just moving from date to date,” said Sharmishta Mallick, who booked an apartment in Gurgaon.President of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI) Getamber Anand, who is also CMD of ATS, said the episode is a clear message that the law will catch up and urged developers to focus on execution, delivery and keep their promise made to the buyers.A senior developer from Mumbai said gone are the days when developers used to promises something at the time of selling and deliver something else. “Now, the buyers are discerning and the courts are active. This episode will make one think twice before messing around with a customer,” said the developer, who did not wish to be quoted.CREDAI NCR president Manoj Gaur said he would not read much in the latest case, but added that fly-by-night operators will have to wind up operations.He said Unitech is a serious player in the segment but found itself in such a mess due to reasons beyond its control.A Bengaluru-based builder said many developers are in a tough spot because of diversion of sale proceeds from one project to another or for acquisition of fresh land. At a time when the sector is facing slowdown, such players get trapped and face the risk of default in repayment of loans and delay the completion of projects.