How India's phantom flats are leaving home buyers' dreams in tatters

As real-estate sales slumped and the once red-hot market cooled, businesses unraveled -- leaving them grappling with debt

Amit Khulve, a 34-year-old resident of the north Indian city of Noida, is still paying off the mortgage on an apartment he’s never lived in.

The sales executive says he borrowed about 500,000 rupees ($8,000) in 2012 and pulled another 1 million rupees from his savings to reserve a flat in a building planned by the property developer Unitech Ltd. Six years on, the project hasn’t been built, and he’s among hundreds fighting to recover their investments. Unitech’s founders have been jailed on charges of cheating, which they deny. India’s Supreme Court in the coming months will review ways to