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S**TLDR:** Builder missed the handover deadline by over a year, stopped paying vendors, and pushed us into directly funding materials and labour just to keep work going. He’s mostly unreachable, keeps asking for more money, and is trying to scare my 73 year old dad out of taking legal action.
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My father (73) signed a contract with a builder in Bangalore in late 2023 to construct our family villa. Construction started in December 2023 with a contractual timeline of 12 months plus a 3-month grace period for handover. That deadline has long passed, but the house is still incomplete, with roughly ₹40 lakh worth of work, materials, and labour still pending. Electrical work, doors and windows, plumbing fixtures, partial flooring, fabrication, and finishing are all still left to be done, and we can’t even begin interiors properly without some of those basics being completed.
When the original deadline was approaching, they suddenly sped up work and assured us the house would be completed within a month. Around that time, there was an accident on site, after which work stopped for a while and we were told compensation and settlement issues had to be resolved before construction could continue. During that period, they requested the final cheque and assured us work would restart immediately once those issues were settled. Work resumed, but after that the builder kept saying money was tight and started asking us to directly procure materials while he would arrange labour and execution.
From there it became a constant cycle of delays, excuses, and half done work. A plumber would show up without pipes, an electrician without wires, a mason without cement. Vendors and subcontractors started turning up asking for payment because they said the builder hadn’t paid them. My father slowly ended up directly paying for materials and labour just to keep the project moving, while also personally overseeing site work because there was no other option.
Meanwhile, the builder became almost impossible to reach. Calls went unanswered, messages were ignored, emails were unread, and every time we went to the office to meet him, he conveniently wasn’t available. He disappeared for months, resurfaced once claiming serious illness, promised personal involvement and completion by April 2026 end, stayed responsive for a few days, and then vanished again.
We also followed the contractual process for raising issues in writing, including formal requests regarding material procurement, delay explanations, scheduling, and execution concerns. These written communications have been largely ignored or met with generic assurances that were never acted upon, leaving us with a documented trail of repeated attempts to resolve matters and very little meaningful response from the builder.
Our contract has a 5% defect liability retention from each payment and a delay clause requiring the builder to pay 12% annual interest on the money already paid in case of delay. The builder is now trying to rely on a clause that allows extension if government rules or regulations affecting development change, and is blaming GBA/BBMP regulatory changes. But from what I understand, our contractual completion deadline (including the grace period) had already expired before GBA came into force, and our plan sanctions were already approved and grandfathered under the old regulations, so I don’t understand how that excuse applies to our case.
There are other red flags we only discovered later. Their claims of “70 years of experience” appears to be based on family history, not the actual company’s operational history. Their GST registration appears relatively recent. They claimed they had a large in-house team and didn’t subcontract work, but soon after signing they outsourced structural design and much of the execution. Their Google reviews are glowing, but I later recognised some reviewers as employees. We were also shown completed projects that now seem questionable in terms of whether they were actually built by this company.
The hardest part is my father’s state of mind. This house is something he worked his entire life for. At 73, his biggest fear is that something will happen to him before he gets to properly live in the home he spent decades building towards. The contractor knows he is deeply anxious about delay and litigation, and keeps telling him that if we go legal, construction will stop, the case will drag on for years, and we’ll spend more money in court than we recover. He keeps pressuring my father to just release more money so he can “finish the project.”
We have the contract, payment records, written communications, proof of delays, vendor payment demands, and clear evidence that the builder has been unresponsive and failed to perform. I’m trying to understand what the right path is from here.
Would K-RERA apply in a case like this, or is Consumer forum /civil action more appropriate? Is a legal notice the first step or should I contact the local police department?
And honestly, how do I convince my father that getting legal advice now is safer than continuing to believe someone who has repeatedly lied and let us down?
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Ahi advocate this side,
Stop making further payments without proper accountability. You already have strong evidence of delay and deficiency in service.
Send a detailed legal notice immediately. K RERA may apply depending on project structure, but consumer forum and civil action are also strong options. Police usually will not help unless clear cheating or fraud is shown. Your father should understand that legal advice now is safer than continuing to trust repeated false promises. Keep all contracts, payments, and communications safely. feel free to message me if you need help
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