From dream homes to legal maze: Flat buyers' decade-long battles for ownership

Highlights:

• Flat buyers face years-long delays due to weak arbitration system
• Buyers cannot directly sue developers under current real estate law
• Over 24,000 apartment disputes remain pending nationwide
• Dhaka accounts for majority of unresolved arbitration cases
• Developers exploit legal loopholes, delaying handover and registration
• Lawyers and judges call for urgent legal and arbitration reforms

For thousands of Bangladeshis, buying a flat or plot was meant to secure a stable future. Instead, many have found themselves trapped in a legal labyrinth stretching for years, and in some cases, decades, with little hope of timely redress.

Delays in handover, failure to complete registration, construction defects and sudden demands for extra payments are among the most common complaints against real estate developers. Yet under existing laws, buyers cannot directly sue developer companies in civil or criminal courts.

Instead, they must seek remedies through arbitration tribunals, a system intended to provide swift justice but which has increasingly become synonymous with prolonged delay, mounting costs and frustration.

According to Supreme Court data, 24,403 arbitration applications linked to apartment and plot disputes were pending nationwide as of 31 October, involving claims worth around Tk19,630 crore.

Dhaka alone accounts for 17,308 of these cases, tied to about Tk14,500 crore. Of them, 2,144 cases representing disputes worth roughly Tk2,300 crore have been pending for more than a decade, while another 2,402 cases involving Tk2,080 crore have remained unresolved for over five years.

Outside the capital, 7,095 arbitration applications involving nearly Tk5,130 crore are pending. Chattogram has the highest number outside Dhaka, with 3,244 cases worth Tk3,200 crore, followed by Sylhet with 1,089 cases involving Tk800 crore.

Infograph: TBS

'Developers act with impunity'

Supreme Court lawyer Barrister Abdul Halim said that before 2010, buyers facing post-purchase disputes could directly file civil or criminal cases.

"But the influential developers' association pressured the government to enact the Real Estate Development and Management Act," he said.

He described the arbitration framework as fundamentally weak, noting that it does not allow for arrest warrants, lacks effective compensation mechanisms, and produces awards that are often not enforceable in practice.

"As a result, developers can act with impunity," Halim said.

He added that loopholes in the law have enabled some developers to withhold registration deeds or mortgage already-sold flats to banks. "If these flaws are addressed, millions of buyers could benefit."

Thirteen years on, still no flat

Jalal Ahmed, a motor parts importer, is one such buyer. He purchased a 1,200-square-foot apartment in Dhaka's Kalachandpur area in early 2012 for Tk76 lakh from Golden Resident Developer. He paid the full amount by July that year, with a handover promised in September.

The flat was never handed over, as construction remained incomplete. After waiting for years, Jalal sought relief under the Arbitration Act by filing a case with the Dhaka Metropolitan District Judge's Court in June 2015.

Thirteen years later, he is still waiting for possession.

His lawyer, Ferdous Ahmed Palash, said buyers have no legal option to file direct lawsuits. Under the 2010 Act, they must apply to the district judge's court, which then constitutes an arbitration tribunal under the Arbitration Act 2001.

In Jalal's case, the court formed a three-member arbitration board headed by a retired district judge. After around 18 months of hearings, the board recommended immediate handover of the apartment.

However, the developer's managing director later filed objections to the tribunal's report – known as the award. Nearly two years on, those objections remain unresolved despite repeated hearings.

"Not only have I failed to get the flat in 13 years, I've been dragged into two retaliatory cases," Jalal said. "The building was completed in 2015, yet I am still moving from one court date to another."

He said he has appeared in court more than 60 times over the past decade and spent over Tk8 lakh on legal fees and related costs. Meanwhile, he claims, the developer has rented out the flat to someone else.

At the last hearing on 13 November, Jalal said the developer engaged influential lawyers, leading to the next hearing being pushed back by another six months.

Responding to the allegations, Golden Resident Developer Managing Director Salim Ullah said the matter was now sub-judice. "I have full faith in the judiciary and will abide by whatever order or verdict the court delivers," he said.

Relief after eight years – an exception

There are rare cases where buyers eventually got their flats, though only after years of delay.

Ashik Al Jalil of Azimpur bought a flat in July 2010 but did not receive possession. He filed an arbitration case the same year and finally won eight years later.

An arbitration board submitted a report in his favour after three and a half years. It then took nearly four more years for the hearings to conclude.

In November 2018, Jalil finally received the deed and possession of his 1,000-square-foot apartment. The tribunal awarded Tk6 lakh in compensation, which he waived to speed up the handover.

Judges overwhelmed, timelines absent

Legal experts say the core problem lies in the structure of the arbitration system itself.

Under the law, district or metropolitan judges act as arbitration authorities and appoint three-member boards, usually led by retired district judges, to hear disputes.

Supreme Court lawyer Aftabul Islam Siddiqui said the law imposes no accountability or binding timelines on arbitration boards.

"There is no clear deadline for hearings or for submitting reports," he said.

He argued that the law should either be amended to allow direct lawsuits with mandatory disposal timelines or delegate arbitration authority to lower courts to ease the burden on district judges.

"A district judge handles the heaviest caseload in a district, with thousands of criminal and civil cases. Delays in arbitration cases are, therefore, inevitable," Siddiqui said.

High Court scrutiny, calls for reform

In May 2019, the High Court issued a rule, questioning the legality of forcing buyers to seek remedies exclusively through arbitration. The rule has yet to be heard.

Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh President Wahiduzzaman said the law was framed after consultations with all stakeholders and provides remedies for both buyers and developers.

Housing and Public Works Secretary Md Nazrul Islam said courts were implementing the existing law but acknowledged that persistent delays would require intervention by the law ministry or the Supreme Court.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Ahsanul Karim warned that without urgent legal reform, the crisis would worsen.

"Without special courts or fast-track mechanisms, this system will continue to fail flat buyers," he said.