Case studies

Property Management Assignment in Mumbai on behalf of Person of Indian Origin (PIO) in South Africa.

Lakshmi (name changed) was born in South Africa and lived all her life there. Her family had inherited a property in Mumbai from her late grandfather who bought it in the 1950s. The property was a cessed 1 building belonging to the pre-independence period situated in the heart of Mumbai, Dadar

The building had a ground plus four (G + 4) structure with 4 commercial outlets and 18 residential tenements. The property was part of an original structure which was further sub-divided into 4 buildings, each of which is joined to the other by a common wall.

Apart from being a pre-independence building, the property had some historical background to it because it was one of the sites of the 1992 Mumbai blasts and as a result had one wall at an open end, being partially destroyed due to the impact of an explosion.

Due to being South African residents, Lakshmi's family all along had depended on rent collectors known to her family through sources in India for managing the property. Little did they know that the property was being grossly mismanaged and the funds due were not reaching at all. Rent collected was not being shown completely and there were instances of tenancies being transferred without the knowledge of the landlord. They continued to receive the pre-independence rent irregularly while these illegal transfers continued with the rent collectors pocketing the extra rent.

She was blissfully unaware of the fraud, until a visit to India a couple of years ago opened her eyes. She promptly sacked the rent collector and in her search to find a trusted representative quickly ended up signing for the services of the 'Secretary' 2 of her own building association, an educated, genial gentleman. To empower him to act on her behalf, she had to give him a power of attorney, which she did and thought that her troubles would end there.

But alas, that was not to be. Her absence emboldened the representative (Secretary ) to collude with the tenants and slowly but surely turn against her. Initially he used his representative status to profit from her property. Later, he started using pressure tactics to coerce her to sign legal documents that would practically render her powerless over her property. She was not in India and also had no family, relative or friend she could depend on in Mumbai. Lakshmi was at a complete loss.

After going through the mental anguish of being cheated upon by her tenants and her representative who was supposed to be protecting her interests, she finally decided to find a professional agency that could handle it. She found YourManInIndia through an Internet Search.

YMI took up the case after a lot of research and analysis of the problem. We requested for a specific power of attorney, armed with which our Mumbai branch met the tenants and explained to them that we were the new POA holders. We then went about nullifying old Power of Attorneys (POA) that were given to the previous rent collectors, but were never revoked. Over a six month period we slowly and steadily gained control of the tenants and streamlined the entire process of rent collections, property maintenance, tax payments, bank account maintenance and legal guidance on the case.

After gaining Lakshmi's confidence with our steps, we learnt that her family wanted to dispose the property for a decent price if they could, since there had no one in India. So that responsibility also fell on YMI.

It is important to note here that although Lakshmi's family was the owner of the property, they did not have valid documents to completely establish that they actually were the owners, save for the original conveyance. So we undertook the onerous task of locating their property card and ensuring that all paper work that would be needed to sell the property was obtained. This was a huge effort as the property papers date back to the pre-independence period.

After that, the task of finding a buyer for the property was an even tougher one as no buyers were interested in a property built in the 1930s, which was not even a stand alone structure and had practically exhausted all FSI (floor space index ) 3. To compound the problem were the 22 hard to evict tenants.

We spent close to 6 months trying to find a buyer through various sources like advertisements in the newspapers, word of mouth reference, informing other clients and potential investors etc. Working meticulously our efforts finally bore fruit when we managed to find an investor who agreed to buy the property at a reasonable price. All this while, Lakshmi was patient and knew she was in safe hands.

Then finally with a lot of coordination between South Africa and Mumbai, we finally managed to arrange the meeting between Lakshmi's family and the buyer. With our active assistance all formalities were sorted out and the property was successfully sold and transferred to the new buyer.

Lakshmi and her family left the shores of India, elated with YMI for bringing a happy end to their troubles with the ancestral property and achieving what they thought was simply impossible.

YMI could make that possible due to some superlative efforts from our Mumbai branch manager and his team.



1 Cessed buildings are those built prior to 1960. The govt. collects an annual cess from the residents of the building for the maintenance and repair.
2 Secretary - Tenanted buildings in Mumbai have elected representatives of their tenant's association or the Building Society
3Floor Space Index (FSI) means the quotient of the ratio of the combined gross floor area of all floors excepting areas specifically exempted under Regulations to the total area of the plot.
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