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KRISHNAKUMAR TS (Senior Associate)     03 July 2014

Harassment from association to pay unreasonable fines

Dear Sir,

We need an opinion from you regarding the harassment that we are facing now from our association.I am staying at Chennai in an old apartments of age more than 25 years. Recently our association has increased the maintenance charges stating the reason as unable to bear the maintenance expenses. But this was decided in the general body meeting with the attendance of  7 to 8 members out of 19(total members) and usually they won’t allow other members(owners) to raise issues in meeting and they will  also immediately suppress our voices if anyone of us ask or raise any questions. So most of the owners will not usually come for the meeting and will accept the decision taken in the meeting after seeing the MOM. This time we sent a letter to the association to reconsider the decision stating some valid reasons and told them that we were ready to pay the old amount till the discussion is over. I sent two letters but for that association have not provided any reply till today and not showed interest to discuss this matter at all and also they refused to accept the old amount and told us they can only accept the revised amount with fine as Rs.500/-every month in full. This has happened during March 2014 and we changed our decision later and we were ready to pay the amount to them by April and also asked the watchman to accept the amount to get receipt. They refused to accept the amount without fine. They said they can only accept the maintenance with penalty as Rs.500/-every month. We told them we were ready to pay them full amount but not with the penalty. This has been a new procedure recently introduced without approval from majority of owners. Every month from April, we have been requesting them to accept the amount but they are not ready to accept without fine for the maintenance (Rs.800) as Rs.500/-They are also accumulating the fine till today for us. I also sent several letters to them stating that we are ready pay the full maintenance and also requested other owners to intervene. Moreover, in the last meeting when owners asked the board members to register the association and they said they are not interested to do that because they need to handle accounts and verify with auditor every year and this will be cumbersome for them. They later dropped the request completely for registration. Our secretary is behaving vey adamant and not ready to accept any request. What can we do to make the association to accept the maintenance? Moreover, we see the fines are also not reasonable and that’s why we didn’t paid that to close this issue. Some of the owners are mentioned comments about these unreasonable demands from association. They are now projecting us as defaulter of maintenance charges even though we are ready to pay the maintenance in full. Kindly suggest an solution.

Regards,

KrishnaKumar



Learning

 2 Replies

T. Kalaiselvan, Advocate (Advocate)     05 July 2014

In the event of the society or association not being a registered body, any decision taken in any of its meting will be invalid in law. If the Office bearers of the self styled association still indulge in such illegal demands without caring for the requests made by other members, you may stop paying the maintenance amount itself, and if anyone demands or threatens to disrupt the basic amenities namely water supply or electricity, he can be taken into task legally by filing a criminal complaint against him/them with the local police station and also followed by an injunction suit before a civil court.  Instead of all these, you gather all like minded people, organize a parallel association and get it registered, invite all the rival members to join your association, if they decline, just do not bother about their inclusion. Consult a local lawyer for further advise and proceed accordingly.

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Dr. MPS RAMANI Ph.D.[Tech.] (Scientist/Engineer)     08 July 2014

I agree with Advocate Kalaiselvan.

In Tamilnadu there is a Tamilnadu Ownership Flats Act, 1994 and Tamilnadu Ownership Flats Rules, 1997. The latter gives Model Bye-laws also.

Unfortunately in Chennai flat owners are lethargic to form associations. Even when they register they register the Association under the Societies Registration Act. Such associations can be easily identified because they will have the prefix "Welfare" to the word "Association".

Generally in any Association registered or otherwise there will be a handful of members who will be active and the rest the lethargic who can be described as the silent majority. The former will act according to their own whims and fancies and the latter would want only a passive peaceful existece whatever may be the cost and whatever injustice may happen around them. Such a crowd will not be self-starting in the formation of a decent, law-abiding association.

It appears to be the situation in your case. You can go along the lines suggested by Adv. Kalaiselvan. You first form an Association of like-minded members. Among the objectives of your association you include the formation and registration of an Association under the Tamilnadu Ownership Flats Act, 1994.

When you proceed if you encounter difficulties you come here again.

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