Vijay
I am staying at Borivali – Mumbai. We have registered CHSL and have concern around monthly maintenance bill. Currently they charge at the rate of Rs 6 per square feet on superbuilt area.
Is it correct? Or should we also charge for variables such as property tax etc?
I C Naik
How to prepare maintenance bills of cooperative housing society in Mumbai:
1. Bye Law No 72 mandates the Secretary of the society, to prepare demand notice in respect of the charges of the society payable by members on the basis of the bye-laws-law No. 71(a) and issue the same to all the members on or before the date fixed by the Committee.
2. Charges of society as listed under Bye Law No 68 are mainly of four types
a. Payments to BMC – Property taxes & Water charges
b. Contribution to funds-Repair fund & Sinking fund
c. General maintenance expenses – power, staff salaries, security services, insurance etc.
d. Recoveries from members – NOC on rented flats, Parking , Interest on delayed payments
Ideally demand note should list out charges under these heads for members’ understanding of what they for what they are consuming. Control on expenses becomes easier.
3. Bye Law No 71(a) lays down basis on which these charges are mandated to be apportioned over each flat.
a. This procedure is not optional. But in Mumbai every society has devised its own method. The composite rate of ` Six per sq feet is the simplest form of comparing the monthly burden on the pockets of members of different cooperative housing societies. It is an easier but unscientific substitute for the rate to be arrived at in a too simplistic way. It is not a method as per Bye Laws.
b. If after conducting a detailed exercise of apportioning the “society charges” as above a composite rate is worked out, it will rarely happen that one rate for all the flats will be the result of such exercise. If these are grouped as aforesaid there can be more than one rate and some may be same for all the flats of same area. But one rate for all is highly unlikely.
c.As a matter of fact, if a detailed exercise is insisted upon by members in the general body meeting (though it is not with in their role to fix rates, a policy direction on how to fix the rates can be laid down by members in the general body meeting) members will get a pleasant surprise that th rate may be somewhat higher but society will report profits every year. This is generally overlooked in simplified rate fixation method adopted by most cooperative housing societies in Mumbai.