• Apartment maintenance

Hi sir.
I am from Hyderabad. This is charan.
we stay in a apartment with 8 flats, most of the owners are elders.
we have one new owner who purchased a flat in first floor. He is a lawyer.he wanted to do maintainace so we all gave in the charge to look after maintenance. After couple of months weve found he is misusing the funds, so president and secretary have give the charge back to me to do maintenance. Since then he is not paying any maintainace charges , its been 11 months he did not pay maintenance fees. Since he is a lawyer he started treathnening and using abusive language on me and other elder owners. 
what can be done to him to pay maintaince.
he is also misusing his power.
can we cut water and common facilities?
please help us in this issue.
thanks.
Asked 5 years ago in Civil Law

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12 Answers

File a petition before the registrar/joint registrar of cooperative societies for recovery of maintenance dues against him.

Netra Mohanchandra Pant
Advocate, Navi Mumbai
1547 Answers
5 Consultations

4.4 on 5.0

Issue notice of 15 days to pay due maintenance, still not paid, pass resolution in committee and cut water and common facilities.

Yogendra Singh Rajawat
Advocate, Jaipur
22636 Answers
31 Consultations

4.4 on 5.0

you can't disconnect the common facilities.You first send a legal notice to him for paying the due amount.Even after issuing a legal notice,if  he didn't respond, then file a suit against him for maintenance dues along with interest charges for the period

Seshukumar Kuchibhotla
Advocate, Hyderabad
57 Answers

5.0 on 5.0

You cannot disconnect water and usage of common facilities 

 

2) if he fails to pay maintenance issue him

legal notice to pay maintenance 

 

3) society can take recovery proceedings to recover outstanding dues 

 

4)install CCTV cameras in complex 

 

5) record his threats 

 

6) file police complaint against him under section 504;506 of IPC 

Ajay Sethi
Advocate, Mumbai
94720 Answers
7532 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

Common facilities like water cannot be disconnected issue him a legal notice to pay the maintenance in case on notice he fails to pay the maintenance, file a suit to recover the amount.  

Further in case he is abuse and intimidating file a police complaint. 

Shubham Jhajharia
Advocate, Ahmedabad
25514 Answers
179 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

Your society is a registered one or not?

you can send him a legal notice and of he is abusing and threatening you then you can file a complaint before the police also.

 

Regards

Anilesh Tewari
Advocate, New Delhi
18078 Answers
377 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

Dear Sir,

No, you cannot cut water and common facilities, It is better to give complaint to the concerned authority.

Any action of the association in disconnecting the water supply to the non-member flat will be considered by courts as illegal as it is an interference in enjoying the common facility. The owner has to be persuaded to pay the maintenance charges as a member of the Association.
If any flat owner is not paying the maintenance charges, it is open to the association to pay the same and demand the same from the defaulting member in accordance with law, provided in the Apartment Ownerships Act.
As per Supreme Court ruling that no society is entitled to disconnect or suspend common amenities including water supply. You have to issue a legal notice to the defaulter and if he/she does not budge, move the Civil Court.
The Apartment Ownership Act of States will have a clause somewhat like this:
Compliance with covenants, bye-laws and administrative provisions.- Each apartment owner shall comply strictly with the bye-laws and with the administrative rules and regulations adopted pursuant thereto, as either of the same may be lawfully amended form time to time, and with the covenants, conditions and restrictions set forth in the Declaration or in the Deed to his Apartment. Failure to comply with any of the same shall be a ground for an action to recover sums due for damages or injunctive relief or both maintainable by the Manager or Board of Managers on behalf of the Association of Apartment Owners or, in a proper case by an aggrieved apartment owner. 

  • Prevention is better than cure, so you can send them SMS/email reminders well in advance so that maintenance dues do not get lost in the long list of bills to pay (You can use CommonFloor Groups for the same).
  • If a resident has not paid his maintenance due till the decided due date, you may give a written notification of 12 days extra to make the payment, and then a grace period of 3 days.
  • If still not paid, discuss with the Management Committee and send a notice to the defaulter.
  • Post this, you may pass a resolution during an association meeting and send a legal notice to the defaulter after consulting an advocate.
  • An interest of 12% per annum may be charged on the default amount from the due date to the payment date.
  • After this, committee may withdraw community borne facilities such as tanker-water, or generator power supplied during a power-cut, or both. In this case, re-connection of services shall be made only if and when full default amount has been paid along with interest incurred. For re-connection of services, defaulter has to additionally pay some amount as penalty.

Netravathi Kalaskar
Advocate, Bengaluru
4952 Answers
27 Consultations

4.8 on 5.0

It makes no difference that he is an advocate or a common person and Society rules for maintenance of common area is applicable to all the Apartment holders and he is one out of them to pay the outstanding common area maintenance charges along with and advise that in case outstanding is not cleared by him the services for this flight will be stopped and he will have no access to the property let him go to the court if he is an advocate and he will not get anything out of this and will pay the maintenance amount along with the interest and legal charges incurred in this regard after the notice

Vimlesh Prasad Mishra
Advocate, Lucknow
6852 Answers
23 Consultations

4.9 on 5.0

You can file a recovery proceedings against him before Dy registrar he will pass necessary orders of recovery from him. Nobody is above law.

Prashant Nayak
Advocate, Mumbai
31951 Answers
179 Consultations

4.1 on 5.0

If the owner of the flat fail to pay the maintenance amount then you can file a suit for recovery money for not paying maintenance amount. 

Mohammed Mujeeb
Advocate, Hyderabad
19299 Answers
32 Consultations

4.7 on 5.0

You cannot disconnect the water supply or curtail any basic amenities just because he is not paying maintenance.

You can issue a legal notice demanding him to pay the monthly maintenance failing which, you may inform that proper legal action would be initiated for recovery of the same.

Being a lawyer is not an authority for him, to threaten yo nor he can claim exemption,  law is common for all hence you may not hesitate to initiate proper n  legal action on this.

T Kalaiselvan
Advocate, Vellore
84920 Answers
2195 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

  1. Law is same for everybody, and when all have the liability to pay then he should also pay.
  2. Yes, first you should give in writing about the payment of the past dues and then wait for sometime.
  3. If he doesn’t pay then also then I would advice you to file a suit on behalf of the society before the civil court of law for the recovery of the amount pending with interest.
  4. Do not straight away go for the disconnection as he might file one false cases against you all.

Sanjay Baniwal
Advocate, South Delhi
5474 Answers
13 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

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