SANTO DOMINGO.– The executive director of the National Institute for the Protection of Consumer Rights (Pro Consumidor) reported that 70% of the complaints received by that institution correspond to grievances about irregularities in the construction sector, especially regarding fraud, hidden defects, abusive clauses in contracts, and other issues affecting real estate projects.
Eddy Alcántara pointed out that, due to this situation, the entity has sent to the Public Ministry in recent months more than 60 files related to construction companies that have been accused of fraud.
The official cited, among those files, the Guepardo case, which affects dozens of people inside and outside the country, and for which the main defendants are in pretrial detention awaiting a possible trial.
“We need to employ as many professionals and technicians as possible in this field,” he said.
He indicated that the complaints are not limited to fraud and construction defects in real estate projects.
He said they also receive complaints about abuses in contractual clauses, where sometimes the consumer accepts adjustments derived from inflation, but the builder exceeds those agreements, affecting the purchaser of the property.
In this regard, he stated that the Board of Directors of Pro Consumidor approved an indexation scale based on data from the Central Bank and the National Statistics Office (ONE), in order to ensure that only the corresponding price adjustments are applied.
Alcántara explained that the implementation of the Real Estate Provider Registry seeks to offer consumers the opportunity to verify the history of each construction company, allowing them to secure their investment before making it.
“We are going to give the supplier the opportunity to verify the history of each company that offers them a product, whether it has had legal conflicts, whether it has had issues with the Consumer Protection Agency, whether it has had delays in delivery, or whether it has had the opportunity to fulfill a customer and then ends up selling it two or three times,” he assured.
The director of the consumer rights agency explained that this project will be presented to all construction companies and their regulators.
