Skip to main content

Kerala High Court bolsters flat owners’ registration rights

A simple directive issued by the Kerala high court has brought into effect the right of owners to register their apartments individually, thereby tremendously enhancing sale ability of apartments.

The directive, issued by Justice A Muhamed Mustaque on a petition by J K Pearl Apartment Owners Association at Pulleppady, also enables setting up a basic framework of rules regarding right of apartment owners on common facilities and maintenance.

In a petition filed through advocate P B Sahasranaman, the association secretary P Krishna Das questioned the registration department's denial of registration of apartments individually as per Kerala Apartment Ownership Act of 1983.

The Act provides for ownership of individual apartment in a building and make such apartment heritable and transferable property. The practice now is to register apartments under the Registration Act, which often leads to a situation where the exact rights of an individual apartment owner are not clearly specified. 

Additionally, the Act facilitates registration of a declaration of the apartment, which describes the common areas and facilities, value of the property and each apartment, percentage of rights of each apartment owner on common facilities and purposes, including voting; restrictions of use, votes required to rebuild, repair, restore, or sell the property; and any other aspect regarding ownership of the apartment. 

The Act provides that in all registration offices, a book called 'Register of Declarations and Deeds of Apartments' should be maintained, along with an index. Through an affidavit, the inspector general of registration claimed that no such register has been provided to the registrar and that government hasn't provided any guidelines on it. 

Declining to agree, Justice Mustaque held, "Every association has a right to register the association in accordance with the Act. The rights of apartment owners forming association and carry out the objectives in terms of the Act cannot be defeated for the reason that the government failed to provide any register." 

The court ordered the government to provide register to all sub-registrars for registering as per the Act within three months. Further, the court directed inspector general of registration to order sub registrars to allow registration as per the Act and record it in the Book One kept as per Registration Act until the government provides registers.

Article referred: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/High-Court-bolsters-flat-owners-registration-rights/articleshow/45600935.cms

Comments

Post a Comment

Most viewed this month

Appellate authorities under Special Statutes cannot be asked to condone delay

Madras High Court in R.Gowrishankar vs. The Commissioner of Service Tax has held that Appellate authorities cannot be asked to condone the delay, beyond the extended period of limitation A Division Bench comprising of Justices S. Manikumar and D. Krishnakumar, made this observation while considering an appeal filed against Single Bench order declining to set aside the order made in the condone delay petition filed by the petitioner to condone 223 days in filing the appeal before the Commissioner of Service Tax (Appeals). Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/appellate-authorities-special-statutes-cannot-asked-condone-delay-beyond-extended-period-limitation-madras-hc/
Post a Comment
Read more

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...
Post a Comment
Read more