Beware of your tenant

I am putting another mail up on how the tenants can fox the landlord and seize their property.

Please beware of such cases

-------------
Resp. Sir,

Sub: Police Inaction in the case of house grabbing by Deepak Niranjanath Pandit (Superitendant of Customs, Air Cargo Complex, Mumbai, brother of producer/Director Ashok Pandith) by misusing official power /and connection at high places

We, Mr & Mrs. K. Gopal Rao aged 75 years and 65 years are the Legal owners of flat no 803 Brookhill Tower, Andheri (W), Mumbai. Mr and Mrs. Deepak Pandit are known to us through Ravi Suvarna who is also Superintendent of Customs, approached to us for temporary shelter for a period of 2-3 months, since in the society in which they stay do not have lift and Mrs Arushi D.Pandit was undergoing a major heart surgery in Leela Hospital and need one bedroom in our flat. Hence, we allowed Mr. Deepak Pandit to stay in our flat with his wife and son (One son is away in Bangalore), by providing one bed room and allowed them to use common hall and kitchen on humanitarian and medical ground with out charging a single rupee.

In Sept 2007, we visited our native place in Karnataka, and locked other 3 bedrooms apart from which has been used by Deepak Pandit and his wife Arushi Pandit by showing blind faith and trust and handed over the keys of main entrance. When we came back from our native place, we found our other two bedrooms locks were broken and the bedrooms have been used by Mr. Deepak Pandit and Mrs.Arushi D. Pandit. When we asked about this mischief, Mr Deepak Pandit very rudely replied that we people should vacate the flat along with our belongings. We were shocked and surprised after this incident.

Then we immediately contacted Ravi Suvarna and Ravi Suvarna contacted Deepak Pandit about vacating the flat. He bluntly denied to vacate the flat and also threatened with dire consequences and that his brother Mr Ashok Pandit is a very influential political person, and Deepak Pandit himself is a Custom Officer and by virtue of his position/post he will grab our flat.

Further we approached to one/two reputed persons in the society and narrated the things, which have been going on and requested them to mediate the dispute. He refused to meet the persons and asked us to pay Rs 10 lakh otherwise he will not vacate the flat .At the same time he mentioned that we will see how he will grab our flat.

Recently we have come to know that other than his house in Juhu (no 214) Juhu Shantivan co-operative Housing Society, building No 13, Gulmohar Cross Road No 6, Andheri (W), he has got one house at Takur Complex, Kandivili (E), and one at Andheri (E). He has rented out all these houses and took shelter at our place on sympathetic/humanitarian grounds.

We have approached the Oshiwara Police and lodged written complaints dated 4/10/07 and 28/02/08 but to no avail. Police have threatened to arrest our grand daughter if she doesn't vacate the house and she was forced to leave the house at 0400 AM on 05/10/07(By SI Gaikwad, Kadam on the instruction of the PI Sonawane of Oshiwada Police Station). As we are old aged and can not run from pillar to post, I kindly request you to Publish this issue because this kind of acts by people by misusing the legal provisions to their advantage and grabbing only shelter of senior citizens by taking the help of police and security staff of the building. This is nothing but breach of trust and they know that if it goes to court it will take years together. These kind of issues should be debated and people should be educated about this kind of offences/crimes (misuse of legal provisions) which were probably made to safeguard poor tenants

Yours sincerely,

Mr. & Mrs. K. Gopal Rao
76/41,14th cross, Padmanabha Nagar,
Bangalore-70
Cell No 09343952727
----------------

Harassment by Housing Society

I recently got a mail by a friend who was being harassed by his housing society members.

I am putting this mail here for your perusal. I live in Ghaziabad so I won’t be of much help in this case, but if you are a Mumbai resident kindly do provide information on the front.

Thanks
---------

Dear Sir,

I have a query. I recently acquired permission from my housing society in Mumbai to re-plaster the internal walls of the flat and re-do the tiling. It was in very bad condition and difficult to stay.

The Society committee members recently slapped me with a Rs. 25,000 fine claiming I had violated the structural integrity of the building by touching the beams and columns. In reality, it was just the exterior fascia (plastering only) and no structural modifications were done. As a confident structural engineer from IIT Bombay, I find the whole case really nonsense and am very confident that some of the society members have some personal vendetta against me and hence the allegations. I must mention that I have got local structural engineers to inspect and certify that the level of works have not violated the structural integrity of the building. They, on the other hand have not got any structural engineer from their side to back their claims.

I am confident that the Society is misusing its powers to abuse me this way. Are there any legal clauses that I can use to prevent their misuse of power? Can you please quote the same and help me in this regard? I am based outside India and the local follow-up is difficult and expensive. I have my own personal problems and cannot put up with such nonsense. Who do I approach?

Thanks in advance.
Kind regards,

XYZ
-------------------

Just a suggestion….

If you own a flat in Delhi don’t even think about selling it off and moving to Ghaziabad, Gurgaon or adjoining areas.

No doubt, you would be able to save a lot of money by selling off property in Delhi and buying a flat on the suburbs at a much lesser cost, but don’t forget that rates in Delhi are skyrocketing and chances are that property that you have sold today might be a prime location tomorrow.

And with the metro gradually connecting far-flung areas of the city, the property rates are increasing by the day.

Then again the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the proposed F-1 race in 2011 are an added attraction. So, Delhi is the place to be.

Know your facts

The other day a couple came visiting me. They had already bought a flat in the neighbourhood but were a little worried and there was reason for them to feel that way.

Apparently, their loan application had been rejected by a bank stating peculiar but correct clause. The bank told them that 60 per cent of their flat was unapproved while the builder had obtained the approval of 40 per cent of it.

Now, you would wonder how is it possible. But it is very much possible and in practice by the men in business (read builders).

To get over the red tape and speed up the construction process, the builder usually gets the map of a particular building approved and construct a whole lot of others based on it.

But sometimes owing to market trends and demands of the customers, slight changes are made in the plan of the buildings that are constructed at a later date and so the construction is slightly off the map.

To get over this anomaly the builders usually obtain a NoC from the authorities. However, in some case the change so much that obtaining a NoC is rather tough and that’s what happened in that couple’s case.

Some banks reject loan application in such cases. So before you buy a flat please be sure to check the original map of the building.

No slump in property

Is there really a slump in property prices?
I think it’s an all time high at least going by real estate prices in the residential sector.

Biking around in search of a home

Last year, after much nagging and prodding I decided to take the plunge. No! I am not talking about marriage here, for I was already married and my wife was in the family way, when I took what I now call the most ‘expensive’ step in my life.

Expensive, literally as the even a layman would be able to tell you how difficult it is to buy a flat these days especially with the sky-rocketing property prices.

Please ignore all those newspapers reports and articles that claim that property prices are undergoing a slump. For before you discover the hard way, let me tell you they are an all time high. At least that’s what I have discovered in the past few months.

I still clearly remember how difficult it was to find a guarantor when I approached a bank for a house loan.

And not to forget the running around I had to do to get my flat registered. The pain me and my wife, who was six months pregnant, then had to endure. I would never ever forget the day when she was riding pillion with me as we did not have a witness to testify for our flat and the amount of money that I had to pay as bribe to make those stamp papers move.

Alas! We have a flat in Ghaziabad.

Let’s hope you don’t go through those hardships…