The Brave Pedestrian

29 th May, 2016, Mumbai: If the Development Agreement is well drafted, then flat-owners are safe, right? Well-drafted contract documents protect the flat-owners if the builders don't honour the contract, right? NO, WRONG! A well-drafted agreement doesn't give you automatic protection; it gives you the LEGAL RIGHT TO FIGHT to dismiss or penalize a non-performing builder... but you will definitely have to wage a legal battle, and your society will be your enemy, not your supporter. Why? REASON NO. 1: NO SUO MOTU ENFORCEMENT. Law enforcement agencies and courts are not required to act suo motu to defend your individual legal rights. Therefore, you have to go to great lengths to convince enforcement agencies and/or courts that (a) you have a certain right under the contractual agreement (b) your right has been violated and (c) you (and not just your society) are a party to the contract. Each of these points have to be proved by you, otherwise your complaint is summarily ...

Mumbai, 25 th May, 2016: While we are sitting in the comfort of our homes, an unfolding tragedy is transforming proud flat-owners into paupers and destitutes who will die in tiny rented homes, senior citizens homes or in the houses of their children, and the memories of the flats that they once owned will be cremated with them. In the name of redevelopment, millions of flat owners are being led like sheep to the slaughter – not only humble salaried workers, unthinking housewives, aged pensioners, over-dependent widows, but also doctors, lawyers, CAs, MBAs, MNC executives, bureaucrats, businessmen, tech-savvy housewives and career-women. Cooperative housing societies are full of financial illiteracy, ignorance of ground realities, overconfidence and gullibility. The redevelopment mantra of cooperative housing societies is: "jo sabka hoga, woh hamara hoga, bharosa rakho" i.e. "What happens to others will happen to us, so have faith." A few thousand buil...