I live in a society in Chennai for the last 31 years , for the last 15 months thing have gone really bad in my society because of which I had stopped giving maintenance.
The reasons are :
I live in the 3rd floor ( the last floor of my society) and the Lift in a shaky condition , no licence available to run the lift and it is still running (massive risk of life).
The terrace is above my ceiling and has been repaired twice but it is leaking and the upper turf is peeling out as well.
Lot of birds around and the society stinks with pigeon droppings. I have informed the committee many a time but they don’t appear to be serious and they ask me to adjust
The value of my residence is gone down as new upcoming societies are valued at 60% more than our existing value because of lack of maintenance. The committee has now served me a notice asking me to pay the maintenance else I will stand to lose services and amenities of my society.
How do I defend my act? Your help in this will be highly appreciated.
I C Naik
As you might have read some posts on this site, Consumer Protection Act 1986 has been held applicable to housing societies taking that they provide services to their members(I differ). The three reasons you have cited are as per this Act viewed as deficiency in service by your housing society, for which you can approach the district consumer complaint redressal forum. On the part of your housing society, giving threat to discontinue service is not backed by law. The Society has to start due process of law to recover maintenance charges and cannot discontinue the services. On your part you cannot take law in your hands and play both the roles of complainant and the judge that the Society is in the wrong and its punishment is no payments of legitimate dues payable to the Society. It is very strange that 32 years relations between a member and the Committee has not established healthy relationships to solve mutual problems with mutual understanding, trust and goodwill.
You can also file your complaint to Cooperative Court but normally that is a bit time consuming.
So finally pay up the outstanding immediately in full along with advance notice that you will take the matter to either Cooperative Court or Consumer Court or both simultaneously and the payment is being made under protest.