A group of 24 people’s dreams of owning a house in this city known for its steep real estate prices, was rudely cut short when they realised that the builder had been duping them with plans of building a 33-storey building when he permission to build only 14.After over five years of false promises, Kiran Talekar, one of the buyers, joined forces with 23 others to finally file an FIR against RNA Developers for cheating them of Rs 15.5 crore.The FIR names East and West Builders, an RNA subsidiary, and its directors Anubhav Agrawal and Gokul Agrawal.In his complaint, a copy of which is available with this paper, Talekar said that he made the decision of buying an apartment in Kandivali’s Palazzo project, being built by RNA.He got news of this project after visiting a real state expo and checked the on-site plans and the ongoing construction work before paying the builder 10 per cent of the price as a booking fee in 2010.Following that, he had also got a loan sanctioned, which had already started disbursing the payment. However, his dream was cut short when in 2012, construction work on the project stopped after only finishing 14 storeys.Despite repeated trips to the Agrawal duo and an extension on the date of the possession of the apartments from the initial promise of 2013, the buyers did not know the real reason behind their ordeal.After Talekar took the matter to the police, the buyers realised that the builders only had sanctioned plans for building stilts, a podium and 14 storeys. Undeterred by this, RNA went ahead and allotted 33 apartments and accepted payments for the same. Advocate Ameet Mehta, who is representing the complainants, said, “The EoW has taken over the investigation since the cheated amount is more than Rs 15 crore. Also, there are chances of other victims coming forward as well.”“They constructed 14 storeys till 2011 and abruptly stopped construction from January 2012 after collecting 100 per cent of the price from innocent buyers,” Mehta added.Meanwhile, as the fight is still on, Talekar lamented saying, “It is a dream to own a house but I paid a huge price for this dream.”