Dear Advocates, I recently moved into my new apartment in Bangalore. It is a fairly large society with 810 flats, out of which around 500+ are registered and 350+ are occupied, while the rest are under construction and/or unsold. Currently, maintenance of the apartment is managed by the builder itself. We (the residents) pay quarterly maintenance 3.25/Sq.Ft. Since, many residents here are already living from more than 2 years, the 350+ residents are planning to form a Resident Welfare Association (RWA). However, upon enquiring, we were informed that builder has already an RWA registered for our society as per RERA guidelines. So, now all we have to do is form an association via the electoral process. However, before we form an association and take hand-over of maintenance from the builder, we have a lot of concerns and I hope to get answers for some of them here. Question 1: With the registered RWA with an empty body, what kind of incidental charges can we anticipate? Meaning, if some accident happens in the society, especially with the workers still working on phase-2, who will be responsible for the incident? RWA or the builder? How do we ensure that builder/vendor takes such responsibility? Question 2: Once RWA body is elected, how do we ensure the builder performs proper hand-over to RWA, i.e., a) Builder should hand-over the maintenance he has collected from new registration b) Builder should provide NOC or receipt from all vendors who are currently working at the society (Water supply, Security, House keeping, etc.) c) Builder should continue to pay maintenance of empty/unsold flats. Question 3: Once the hand-over is done to RWA elected body, how do we ensure the builder doesn't vacate the society with a lot of civic work still pending like (STP, Rain water harvesting, Skydeck, drainage, lift malfunction, etc.)? Question 4: As part of the hand-over, can we divide/share the maintenance with builder? Considering the society is only half occupied, the maintenance will go up, if only 350 residents contribute to take care of 810 flats. So, how can we ensure builder pays his part of the maintenance for unoccupied/unsold flat? Basically, what the residents are worried about is, once the RWA body is formed, how badly can the builder screw us with respect to non-payment of previous vendors, not giving maintenance money collected from new registrations & empty unsold flats, will he run away from the project with pending civic work, who will be responsible for any accidents of the builder workers? Last but not the least, Do we need an advocate for conducting RWA elections? Is there a legal guideline for conducting RWA elections in Bangalore? Hope to find answers to all the questions. Thank you in advance.
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Builder has engaged the workers for construction
2) builder and contractor would be liable
3) insist on audited accounts from builder
4) builder is required to pay maintenance for flats in respect of which OC is issued
5) sue the builder to complete pending works
6) you don’t need lawyer for conducting elections
For an y such accidents, the builder/contractor shall be liable to pay compensation and not the RWA because the work ws not entrusted by RWA.
The Apartment Owners Association needs to get documents and audited accounts from the builder during the handover of the apartment
The activities related to maintenance of the building is to be taken care of the builder till he hands over the same to the association.
3. The association should issue a legal notice to the builder to complete the pending tasks and give him a timeline to complete the same.
4. The maintenance charges are to be paid by all the occupants of the flats at the fixed rate. The builder has to pay for the unsold flats.
You do not require the assistance of an advocate to conduct elections if you are prudent enough to conduct the same by yourself.
