NEW DELHI: The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has agreed to examine whether a developer could refuse to part away from the unspent money collected on the name of maintenance of a housing project after the formation of resident welfare association for the society which is entrusted with the task to maintain the buildings.

A bench of Anup K Thakur and C Viswanath issued a notice to Kolkata based real estate company ABA Corporation on a plea of a group of flat owners of its Ghaziabad housing project who filed a complaint against the builder alleging that it was not handing over Rs 7.16cr to their registered apartment owners association. The amount was collected from 868 apartment owners on the name of IFMS (Interest Free Maintenance Security) and club security.

The petition, filed through advocate Nikhil Jain, contended that as per the law the management and maintenance of the housing society got transferred to flat owners association after its registration and the builders must hand over unspent amount collected on the name of maintaining the buildings.

The petitioners are flat owners in ’Olive County’ housing project which is located at Vasundhara in Ghaziabad and their association got registered in 2013. The association is governed by a Board of Management comprising of members elected from amongst the apartment owners. Maintenance of the project was handed over by the promoters in 2016 but petitioners alleged that the company had not transferred the above securities to the association till date. They contended that the promoter was required to transfer the deposited amounts in favour of the association at the time of handing over the management of the building.

Referring to section 14(5) of the Uttar Pradesh Apartment Act, they contended that on formation of the association of the apartment owners, the management of the affairs of the apartments regarding their common areas and facilities shall be deemed to be transferred from the promoter to the association which shall thereupon maintain them. They said that as per the Act, the amount collected by the promoter towards interest-free maintenance security shall also be transferred to the association at the time of handing over of the common areas and facilities.

“The promoter collected IFMS from each apartment owner @ Rs. 30/- per sq.ft. of super area and also Rs. 30,000/- per apartment as club security. The total amount of both of these securities comes to around Rs. 7.16 crores. This total amount was to be handed over to the resident welfare association upon its formation,” the petition said.

