Hi!
I'm a resident of Chandivali in Powai presently where I stay on lease in a 3 BHK at Raheja Vihar. I own a 2 BHK in Powai since 2005 (Cinderella Co-op Hsg Society). The reason for not staying in my own flat are primarily as follows-
1.) Intially, it was just my husband and myself who stayed there; however, now we have 2 children & even our parents live with us. So in all we're 6.
2.) My son who is 3 years now, would keep running outside the building which is along a road experiencing moderate to heavy traffic. There have been umpteen occasions when he's been saved from an accident.
Hence, we eventually decided to move to a bigger place. Since we did not find a 3 BHK to our liking, we presently decided to move on lease & take time out to find & buy one during the lease period. This happened in Jan 2011. Parallely, we leased out my apartment so that we could meet increasedcosts.
Now, in June 2011, the society suddenly increased our Non Occupancy charges. Where I was billed Rs.100/- earlier, the bill carried a charge of Rs.800/-. I thought it was a mistake and checked with the secretary who confirmed that this step was taken by the committee members. On asking for the reason, I was informed that since we don't reside there & we're making money by leasing out the apartment, we need to contribute some additional charges to the society. Quite some society members opposed this because as per bye-laws NOC cannot be charged beyond 10% of service charges.
So, given the opposition, the next bill (July 2011) onwards, they have started charging us 'Common Amenities Fund' which ironically isn't common and is being charged only to owners of apartments that have been let out and not all residents. Moreover, there aren't any amenities that this can be charged for!!! I felt this too wasn't fair and when asked for a reason, it was the same; since, we are making money out of our flat, we need to pay additional charges out of the profit we're making. I kept arguing that our rentals for the flat we now stay in are higher than what we've leased our flat for, however to no avail.
I want to understand if such a charge is a fair charge. If not, then how can we make the Managing Committee see light & remove this unfair charge?
