Dear Lawyers, Thank you in advance for reading this and helping me out.
I bought a flat on top floor in a new construction in Bangalore in July 2014 and got the possession for the same in Jan 2015. We moved into the house at the same time.
There were many cracks on the internal walls of the house, right from possession, between joints of wall and pillar/beam, which I had given up, as builder had not been able to fix it after many tries. But those are as well evident of the quality of the work.
Another issue to note here is that, builder has till date not provided us Occupancy Certificate and A Khata Transfer as he has deviations in the project.
Coming to the main issue, as builder's works were still being finished, builder handed our the building to our association only in Sept 2015. The builder, while leaving, had assured us against as civil/construction issues, he will fix, even if those happen in 10 years! Not that I believe him, but its not been an year as well yet from the time he left and just an year from possession.
Unfortunately, around Oct 2015, I found a crack on the external wall of my kitchen, which was causing huge leakage in the kitchen and damaging the furniture. The crack must have existed earlier as well, but we had somehow missed it. Also, during rains, there was water leakage observed on lower sides of inner walls of entire apartment. I informed this to the builder and builder's marketing person, but even after constant follow up with builder, his marketing person and builder's supervisior; and constant assurances from them about getting it done, the fix was never carried out. Finally I got it fixed myself on 10th March. Fortunate enough that it was in time to save me from abrupt rains those happened in Bangalore during 15-18th March.
But, things did not end here. Unfortunately enough, another leakage started happening from ceiling of the living area (hall) on 15th March during the rains. It happened from the a crack, I was observing for days, but had ignored as a superficial crack as advised by builder's supervisior earlier. We checked from the terrace and the crack is through and through the slab and hence the leakage. The builder's supervisior came and checked on 16th, but no fix has been done till now. Also, builder never responded to my calls, hence had to speak via the marketing person, supervisor and whatsapp.
Also, on further checks today, 20th March, I am seeing many more cracks developing on both sides of the slab, our ceiling and terrace, which as well are through and through. I tried reaching out to all of them today as well, but none are responding to the calls as well as there is no clear assurance on when will it be fixed. Even if they may fix it, but they are surely showing no urgency. A thing to note here is that the crack passes through an electric point and this has been pointed out to them and the dangers related to it, but do not seem to care.
Same issue is observed in atleast 2 more flats on my floor as well.
My queries are:
- Does this come under construction quality issues / cheating by builder?
- Given that we have not been given OC yet, what is the builder's liability under this?
- Does this qualify for a case in consumer court? If yes, what is the procedure of filing the case in consumer court?
- Could there be any clause in agreement which can save the builder from fixing these issues?
- What written procdures should be done with builder before filing a case to show we had given him apt time to fix the issue?
- What happens in these kind of cases and how long do they run?
Thanks again.
