Buying a property - Beware!!

I am writing this post as an alert mail to anyone who is planning to buy a property. This is something which I saw, and I feel I should warn others too.

I am staying at "X" apartment in "Y" Area (am not revealing any names due to moral and legal reasons) in Bangalore. The apartment was developed by "Z" builder 20 years ago. This apartment has nearly 125 houses and it has 6 blocks (A to F). This is one of the modern apartment concept where the apartment includes kids play area, badminton court and so on. One fine day, when returning from the office, I was shocked to see the nearby building (individual house next to the apartment) demolished half. Nearly 10 feet of the house has been demolished. And the bulldozer was standing inside our apartment. Completely confused we started asking what is happening. And this was the shocking news. There had been an encroachment. Encroachment of the BBMP(Bangalore blah.. blah.. some government organization) land - unauthorized building constructed over the drainage canal (called as Raja Kaluve in Kannada). Don't know how BBMP started digging this problem - all of sudden we came to know BBMP has marked 40 houses constructed over the drainage canal. The marking was done fortnight before and now they have started demolishing the houses. They have already demolished 10 houses - some houses completely and some houses partly. So what's the next problem. A whole block of this apartment has been marked for demolition. This goes the story of the apartment -- there was a garden --> grape vine in the area surrounded by coconut trees. This garden was completely destroyed and the apartment was built (there is no written proof for this story. All stories spread by words). This apartment is one of the old apartments (first constructed) in that area. So how did this apartment face this encroachment problem?? No one knows - there are 16 houses in that particular block and BBMP is going to demolish this block. Was this encroachment done by the "Z" builder? Was this encroachment known to the owners of the 16 apartments? How were all the documents modified to hide the encroachment? Who played the game - of course with money - but who did it? No one knows that. When the people of the apartment questioned the BBMP, they straight away asked the document approval - which nobody in that block had. The owners of the block tried to get stay order for this - which triggered even more problem. The people who lost 10 houses (near our apartment) contacted the Lokayukta (this is one of the best schemes of the Karnataka government - anybody can file complaint against injustice). The Lokayukta people visited the apartment and they questioned the BBMP about the map for the drainage. BBMP took a day's time to produce the map - but they finally produced the map. The map was so clear --> clearly showing the original path of the drainage and the existing drainage. There was a clear encroachment. Now the BBMP has dug in the apartment and we could see the canal flowing below the apartment road. They have demolished the compound wall - and yes, we could see the drainage flowing outside. No one had ever seen beyond the compound wall. Only when they demolished the compound wall - we could see nearby houses - one house built exactly before the canal and one house built after the canal. So there is a very clear encroachment. There is another story too - when it rains our apartment will be flooded with water only in from of that particular block which has been marked as encroachment- and rest will have no problem. Looks like the apartment people complained to the BBMP to look into this water stagnation problem. They say when BBMP probed into this all these problems started. This is again a story heard from different people. No strong evidence for that.

So, what I am trying to tell :

  - Please be very careful when you buy any property.

  - Please check any documents properly before buying a property

(Everyone in this block is well educated - but what happened? How did they end up with this problem?)

      - When you check for documents, please ensure what are the approvals required in a city/ state where you want to purchase the property (for e.g. In bangalore, when you want to have a high raised building more than 4 storey (now extended to 8 storey limit), we should get BBMP approval in consent with the fire service department. I have not heard this rule anywhere.) So please collect details of all the approvals required in a city where you are planning to buy property.

      - People going for loan will get lawyers apporval. Please get a proper check done by the lawyer. Don't get the documents signed by the lawyer just for name sake. The terms used in law are so exhaustive that we will not be able to find the loop holes in the document. A thorough check should be done by the lawyer - not only in terms of land sizes but many other terms like land owner names, power of attorney usage etc.

  - When you find something fishy about a property

      - Like that is the only property not sold out in the area - then better be careful

      - When you find the land in some unimaginable dimensions (looking like a hexagon, pentagon, trapezium.. :-p etc) then pay more attention towards the near by land dimensions.

      - When you find some government constructions on the land - like an Electricity board poll, be careful.

      - Try to find the reason why the owner is selling out the land

      - When approached by brokers pay double attention to it

      - When buying from builders be careful because they have acquired a big part of land and it would be difficult to really find if encroachments had happened.

      - When someone projects land rate would appraise in the near future because of some SEZ, airport coming nearby, then make sure there is no goverment acquisition plans.

There are so many many things to take care before you decide to buy a property - I am not an expert to tell that - but I would like to warn people. Remember "Stitch in Time saves nine" :-)

People buy property - for some it is dream, for some it is just tax saving (especially IT people who resort to properties with the assumption that it is the best method), for some it is the best way to avoid shifting houses because of the pestering owners... What ever it is - no one would invest lakhs of money just for fun. It is our money and it our right to check the authenticity of the property.

I am only a tenant here - I am just seeing the owners tears. But the agony of the owners cannot be shared by anyone. It is easy to tell "All is fate. Who expected all this would happen" - but it is our duty to be safe.

I would like to remind that, the history of the apartment, the reason why BBMP digged the canal, who would have started this encroachment is all stories heard from people. There is no proof for that. But there is one fact that is definietly true - there are 40 families who are going to lose their hard earned money in the name of property. Encroachment - whether you are involved directly/ indirectly or even unknowingly; is a sin. Government will not care how you earned it, they will not care what is your current status, they are not bothered if you are innocent or not - all they know is to label that as encroachment and take the land away from you - even if it is 1 feet. So better be careful - no use crying over the spilt milk. :-)

What I am going to do now is to check all the documents of the house I own... ;-)