The Brave Pedestrian

Mumbai, 17th May, 2018: When you pay a token of Rs 5 lakh and fill up an application form for booking a flat in Omkar Alta Monte (situated on Western Express Highway, Malad East), you enter into contract with Omkar builders, right? Right, because you are bound by the contract as soon as your money goes into their bank account. If you cancel the transaction, whatever you paid will be forfeited. As much as Rs 30 to 60 lakh is the token or "application fee" for a 3BHK costing Rs 3 crore, and you can lose all that money if you try to cancel the transaction.  It seems reasonable to expect that Omkar builders are also bound by the same contract to sell the flat to you, right? Wrong, because Omkar Realtors are NOT contractually bound to sell you the specified flat, or any flat for that matter. They can reject your booking even two months after you paid the initial token amount. Omkar does not have to give you any reasons for rejection, and you have no right to ask. Adding insul...

4th October 2013, Mumbai: Since redevelopment started in 1991 about two decades ago, and builders could augment the FSI (Floor Space Index) of the land by purchasing TDR (Transfer of Development Rights), cooperative housing societies started neglecting their structures. Seduced by builders who promise larger houses and new buildings, building societies have been keen to steamroll opposition to their redevelopment proposals by individual members by deliberately allowing their building to deteriorate, so that structural auditors can declare them as “dilapidated”. Earlier, it was a nightmare for a society to be told that its building was structurally unsound, and managing committee members and general body members alike were anxious to avoid it by regular re-plastering, painting and repairing. But in the last two decades, a report from structural engineers saying that the building is “dilapidated” or is in need of “major rapairs” has been the dream of every managing committee, because i...