One bank has 9 flats in our complex but the flats are occupied by their staff The bank is charging rent from them and in allotment letter the staff is. Addressed as tenant Is the society authorised to charge NON OCCUPANCY CHARGES from the bank
I C Naik
Concept of “Housing Societies” has not been consistently understood. Societies facilitate construction of ownership houses despite paucity of land to construct houses. Ownership title of land is de jure jointly owned by the Society and dwelling units are de facto owned individually by the members. The demand for flats was outpacing the availability of land so cooperative societies were allowing holding more than one flat in a family on merits. More than one flats were also allowed only after specific approval on case to case basis. When member was unable to occupy the flats for one or the other reason as listed in bye-laws Model 1984 he was permitted to let it out. Housing Societies were asking for a big chunk of Rent income from members which were after protracted litigation in High Court were capped at 10% of Service Charges members were liable to pay to the Housing Society. Members subletting flats to near relatives were exempted from NOC. Case of a Business House holding flats for occupancy of employees (on ownership bases/Rental) also started though not on a huge scale. So the whole basis of Cooperative societies in housing has changed very significantly. The Government having specified the ceiling on NOC has diluted the concept of democratic functioning with autonomous functioning. The Housing Society management is not allowed to democratically decide sharing of rental income of a member from flats being looked after by the Society and the Government has arbitrarily fixed the ceiling. The employer allowing employees to occupy the flat by employees does amount to earning income by saving on market rent and he is no different from a member letting out the flat to any person. NOC should be chargeable to the member.