Paid for parking at your flat? You've been cheated

Builders violating law by charging for parking slots in apartment complexes.

It is not only the problem of unauthorised parking fee collectors that the citizens of Bangalore have to brave. Builders of apartments, who are unauthorised to sell parking spaces, collect money and provide ownership of the space to their tenants.

Richa Ranjan, 25, whose parents have owned an apartment off Old Madras Road for the last five years, wondered why they paid more money than some others. “...Oh! That is because we got our own parking space,” she quoted her father as having told her.

Taking advantage of the ignorance of their tenants almost all the builders in the City have made it a practice to sell parking spaces in apartment complexes, gated communities and so on. However, the Karnataka Apartment Owners’ Act, 1972, clearly forbids such places from being sold.

The Act which states that no ‘undivided common area’ can be sold by the builder, defines common area to include basements, cellars, yards, gardens, “parking areas” and storage spaces. However, violating this, many builders sell properties along with the parking area.

Going by the sale deed registered in favour of Manjula Shivakumar, a resident of R T Nagar, the parking space is mentioned in schedule ‘C’ which, according to senior officials from the Stamps and Registration department, is the schedule that contains items/areas that are sold, unlike schedule ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘D’.

Her husband, Shivakumar, said: “When we were purchasing the apartment, the builder told me that it would cost me Rs 1.75 lakh less if I do not want parking space. However, given that I had plans of purchasing a car in the future, I agreed to pay the extra amount.

It was only later that I found out that the builders are forbidden from selling parking space.” He said he would bring this matter up in the next general body meeting of their association.

His is not the only case in the City. Deccan Herald has procured several other sale deeds which show that parking space has been sold to the customers. Explaining the matter, a senior office-bearer of Credai, said: “I don’t think any builder sells the parking area.

They only grant the right to use the parking space. It is improbable that they sell it.” However, a senior official from the Stamps and Registration department said: “If the area is mentioned in Schedule ‘C’ then it amounts to sale. We see a lot of such properties being sold but it is out of our jurisdiction to prevent it. Only the purchaser of the flat or somebody who lodges a formal complaint can prevent it.”

It is also found that some builders have sold more than one parking space to a purchaser.

Another sale deed registered in favour of Gopi Uttampilly and Rajalakshmi Nair, says under Schedule ‘C’: “...A three-bedroom apartment no. 710 in the seventh floor of ‘A’ block in the multi-storied building with a super built-up area of 2191 sq ft (which is inclusive of balconies and proportionate share in the common areas) with two car parking space (one covered car parking and one surface car parking).”

It is interesting that car parking is not mentioned along with the common areas.