Hello Learned Members,
We have a first floor flat in Nerul, Navi Mumbai which is about 30 years old.
About 3 months back (28 Feb 2022), after returning from our hometown, we found that a portion of the ceiling of a bedroom had fallen down. We complained to the society, and they suggested verbally to appoint a Structural Engineer to audit the situation and carry out repair work, as few other flats also suffered from similar kind of incidents. They had permitted us to carry out repair work in other rooms' ceiling as their condition was also not good, but not fallen down. However, they also stopped that work, fearing the ceiling might fall. So, they put multiple support bars to hold the ceiling from falling, making our flat not livable at all.
The Secretary and Chairman of the society verbally promised to get our flat audited by the Structural Engineer, which was in the process of appointing. So, since 1st May we started staying temporarily in our relative's place.
In the meantime, the society appointed a Structural Engineer but to our surprise did not include our flat for auditing. We hired a SE and an Architect ourselves who reported how dangerous our flat is, as anytime our flat's ceiling can collapse. The reason behind the condition of our ceiling is because of seepage and leakage of water from the walls, the iron rods in the concrete are all rusted badly and cannot hold the concrete anymore.
We submitted these reports to the society and asked them to carry out the repair work immediately as the monsoon is approaching.
However, the society is not replying to our letters and mails, nor they are carryong out repairing work and giving any reason why they did not include our flat for auditing or taking any action to repair our ceiling.
We are senior citizens staying alone. We are extremely mentally stressed as the society has literally made us homeless. We cannot sleep at night out of stress as you can see that I am writing this post at 3am.
Kindly help with your suggestions about what actions should we take and how much time it may take in the process.
Best regards...
