Tamil Nadu Cracks Down on Misleading Real Estate Ads: No More “5 Minutes Away” Claims

The Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority, abbreviated as TNRERA, has recently announced another new direction as part of their guidelines to prohibit vague location claims from misleading and deceptive real estate advertisements. All the common phrases like “just 5 minutes from the metro or the airport, or school” will cease to exist, and therefore, the regulator is insisting on much clearer and truthful representations.

Recent guidelines stipulate that all real estate advertisements must include the precise location of the project as per approved layout plans, as well as explicitly indicating the distance from that project to the next most important feature, like schools, metro stations, or airports. That distance must be measured using the most commonly taken road routes. Most significantly, however, advertising travel times for distances shall be banned, notified in these directives, since they vary significantly due to changing traffic conditions.

This was done considering that they have observed a rising trend among real estate developers regarding making broad, unverifiable travel-time estimates as hooks for drawing homebuyers. By obliterating such methods, this authority will be able to guarantee that potential homebuyers receive facts that they can measure and also verify in any kind of investment decision they are making.

“Henceforth, any misleading or unverifiable claims in real estate promotions will invite penalties under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016,” stressed TNRERA. Now, the developers must back up every location-related claim with actual distances, allowing buyers to assess the property property-wise connectivity.

The rule covers: To print all advertisements, digital advertisements, advertisements by television and hoardings and brochures-published advertisements related to registered real estate projects in Tamil Nadu.

This rule, expected to further ensure that promoters are held accountable, also aims at reducing figures mainly found in marketing language that are exaggerated and mislead homebuyers, especially in urban regions, and more so in rapidly growing cities like Chennai, Coimbatore, and Madurai.