Sir,
The flat in which I reside in Cochin does not have a residents' association. The flat's activities, maintenance and things are taken care of by the flat owners' association. And the tenants are not included/consulted or even considered in any decisions taken by the owners association. The tenants residing in this flat does not have any say in the daily matters of the flat. They are treated impartially by the members of the flat owners association. Even some of the owners are also not helpful.
Coming to the problem, we tenants are compelled to pay the rentals whatever this association decides and enough facilities like proper water supply, security arrangements, cleaning, lift facility are not provided. This building has no proper safety and fire measures, security arrangements, ample water connections from the corporation. The common area usage is also restricted to the tenants by these members. Whereas, they without the consent of the residents rent out free space for hosting mobile towers, offices for commercial purposes, etc. A portion of the rentals paid by the tenants are even used to meet other activities like painting the building, building the generator shed, purchasing the furniture for the office of this association, etc. This association is controlled by few members of the owners who play an autocratic role. The secretary of the association abuses those tenants who dare to question them and he and his family members even ask the tenant residents to leave if we cannot stay there listening to them. These members of the association denied to show the accounts of the maintenance amount collected from the tenants. They claim that it was decided by all owners that the maintenance expenditure will not be shown to the tenants. Whereas, in the rental agreements of each house leased/rented out by various owners clearly state that the maintenance charges are separate and had to be paid by the tenant towards the building maintenance.
Do we, tenants have the right to ask for a transparent dealing when it comes to the maintenence of the building? Does the owners association have the right to deny showing the accounts to the tenants, as long as the tenants are paying the maintenance charges? What can the tenants do to tackle this type of approach by the members of our flat's association? Most of the owners were cheated by the builder and now they are cheating on tenants. The owners association use our money to meet their needs, wherein they had to shell out the money. They even started collecting registration fee of Rs.500/- from the new tenants towards the registration charges for the owners association membership. Isn’t it illegal? Their stand is that we tenants need not interfere in the daily matters of the maintenance of the building and we cannot ask for the accounts/expense details. What can we do? Now they have started pressurizing the owners (of those tenants who are questioning these members) to ask their tenants to vacate the houses.what legal protection do we have as human beings and as consumers? How can we fight this?
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