Residents of Prateek Laurel, a residential society in Sector 120, Noida, and Prateek Group, the builder, seem to be at loggerheads over the handover of the society to the Apartment Owners’ Association (AOA).
According to the AOA, they cannot accept the handover of the society as the exhaust pipes in the generator room were not yet operational. The builder, however, claims that the project has got completion certificates and rival factions among residents are indulging in politics over the handover of the society. The issue has been further complicated over a temple trust in the society — and a war of words, so to say, has ensued between them.
The builder increased the maintenance charge by 20 per cent this year after which the residents wrote to the project engineer, Noida Authority, urging him to serve a notice to the builder to show the expenditure details of the past three years. Acting on their complaint, Noida Authority recently served a notice to Prateek Group. Ved Pal, project Engineer of Noida Authority (RWA cell), said, “On receiving complaints from residents, I wrote to the builder saying that they should reply to the notice.”
Following the notice by the Authority, the builder served a notice to the AOA. The notice said that the builder has been providing maintenance services to the residents. The AOA, which was formed over a year ago, has failed to deploy maintenance staff. In the notice, the AOA was requested to make arrangement of maintenance staff and take care of other services as soon as possible.
In reply to the builder’s notice, AK Jain, secretary of the AOA, wrote to the builder highlighting pending work in the society. Jain said, “I fail to understand the purpose of this letter given to the AOA. It appears that the letter is just to counter Noida Authority’s letter to the builder for furnishing expenditure statement for maintenance in the last three years.” He added that the construction of society’s complex is not complete as the installation of DG exhaust, and obtaining of fire and pollution clearance certificates are pending.
Sandeep Singh, president of AOA, told City Spidey that the builder has also not taken any steps to resolve the issue of a temple trust. He alleged that the builder has given possession of a temple in the society to a few residents. “These residents have illegally formed a trust for the temple and are not handing it over it to the AOA,” he said. He added that if the builder completed the pending development work in the society, they (the AOA) would accept the handover immediately.
The builder, however, had a different story to tell. SK Mittal, president of Prateek Group, said that residents of the society are indulging in politics over the issue of taking handover of the society. “There are two groups that are fighting among themselves. Each group wants the handover of the society to go in its favour,” he said. “If the project is not complete, how come it has been given completion certificates? Earlier residents’ demand was to register their property with the registrar of Stamp and Duty and that has been completed. As far as installation of exhaust for DG sets is concerned, it is in progress and will be completed shortly,” he added.
Mittal also said that the builder is ready to sign a memorandum of transfer with residents of the apartment and the residents should come forward to accept the handover. They should deploy their own maintenance staff and the builder’s staff would be removed.
