In Mumbai we see that due to draconian age old rent act the buildings inhabited by tenants keep falling. Actually if tenants were visionary, less greedy and maintained good relations with landlord then it was possible to maintain the building. In fact there are instances but few where tenants ignored rent act and handsomely contributed to repair the building and
are
liv
ing
in good condition safe building
post repairs
. In few other cases tenants cooperated in redevelopment of building and thereby they got repossession in a new modern building.
But most other old buildings are in a ruinous condition where tenants are adamant and do not contribute / take steps to maintain the building they live by paying 6
5
years old rent , use the building callously, damage same by overloading, drilling,
carrying
out unauthorized repairs, not plugging leakages etc . Instead of maintaining good relations with shelter provider they slap cases on him and try to hurt him more financially by making him spend his scarce resources on costly long drawn court cases.
As most of you are aware I am co owner of two old buildings in Santacruz east, Mumbai.
I live
on
first floor and hv my office on ground floor in Tholiya Bhavan. Tholiya Bhavan is made of good construction material, maintained satisfactorily and though there are tenants and
some of the
m
are nefarious ( drunkard and doing mischief, not paying rent, misusing etc ) yet building is in good condition.
The second building Saburi is of 1942 . The tenant Mrs Bina Chowdhuri kept filing cases on earlier landlord. In 1990 I purchased the building and immediately she filed a case on me too falsely claiming terrace etc to be tenanted to her.
Other tenant and trespassers are not paying rent. They
were jointly exploiting the building to best but not doing anything to maintain same. Building turned in to a ruin.
The width and height of vakola bridge adjacent to Saburi building was incre
ased
thus building became low level
. On one side is a Mithi river nala. SWD
( storm water drain )
adjacent to building are never cleaned with the result the ground floor of building gets flooded every year.
The unauthorized hotel has added load of unauthorized shade on building. Hotel has kept surroundings so bad that it has damaged the building by heavily breeding pests and rodents.
Bina Chowdhury restrained me from going to first floor and terrace
by obtaining injunction by misrepresentation
and she never repaired terrace. Therefore terrace started leaking and by now heavily. She never repaired the toilet blocks and passage near toilet blocks inspite of written tenancy agreement, moral duty etc and from there heavy water leakage started to ground floor damaging the ceiling, beams and load bearing walls.
Since such building hv been falling year after year and affecting precious life and property in the year 2013 a new act was passed where all buildings above 30 years and older are required to be surveyed and stability assessed by a BMC approved civil engineer. This is called structural audit.
In the month of Nov. 2013 we received notice to carry out structural audit of this building. The audit report says clearly that building is in falling condition. The report was submitted to H/East ward office of BMC in Dec 201
3
.
After long wait of 4 months BMC
ha
s sent me a notice to get the building vacated. They have added a funny demand that I prop up this building.
My request to you is to advise me :
1. How do I get building vacated from the tenants and trespassers?
2. How do I get the building propped up? Can anyone suggest any agency who can do this and take the risk on their head that while propping and in near future thereafter the building will not fall?
Pl. advise and help.
Repercussions if building falls:
- Loss of life and property of occupiers.
- loss of life and property of near by inhabitants.
- AS we regularly read in paper the owner of building is arrested post fall of building . Buildings fall because of old rent act, non paying tenant, police not removing trespassers, tenants neglecting the tenanted premises, tenants not cooperating for redevelopment, RBI and banks not financing landlords for redevelopment, BMC patronizing illegal work by tenant/ trespasser for a bribe,BMC officialsallowing illegal hotel in property by taking huge bribe, water dept giving water to illegal hotel inspite ofbeing regular defaulter, BMC building and proposal dept taking bribe in crores for clearing new development proposal which landlord can't afford ( and only mafia and builders can afford easily) and so on like Courts delaying the matter for couple of decades.Still all these people go scot free and ........
the landlord
is
arrested.
Pl. advise and help.
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