🏢 Paying 2,800 a month in maintenance and the lift works one day in three

Our apartment block in Nizampet has four floors above the parking level and a lift that works when it feels like it. We pay 2,800 rupees every month as maintenance, and I have seen the receipt book, so I know the money comes in on time from every flat. The lift has been out since the second of this month. Before that it was out for nine days in August. Before that the secretary said a part was coming from Pune, the part did arrive, and it lasted six days. My father is 71 and lives on the third floor, and he has stopped going down for his evening walk because the stairs on the way back are too much for him. The watchman carries the gas cylinder up on his shoulder and gets nothing extra for it. Last month I asked to see the accounts at the general meeting and was told they are being prepared. Prepared for what, they have been collecting since 2021. The generator diesel line is higher than the entire common electricity bill, and the generator runs maybe an hour a day when power goes. Somebody stood up and asked about it and the meeting moved straight on to the parking sticker issue, which took forty minutes. Now the committee wants another 500 a flat for painting the compound wall, which nobody asked for and which will not help anyone stuck between floors. Two neighbours want to go to the registrar and one wants to simply stop paying, and I think both ideas will make life harder for the older people who live here. I have started keeping a note of every day it is out and the count for this year is already at 31, written on the back of an old electricity bill. What can an ordinary flat owner demand from a committee in writing, and which office in Hyderabad takes that kind of complaint?

Accounts being prepared is a normal answer for a few months, not for four years. In our society we asked for the records in writing and sent a copy to the registrar's office. Nothing dramatic happened, but the statements appeared within about a week, which told us plenty. I would try that before anything angrier, and keep your father's walks in the letter, it makes it personal.

My mother lives on the fourth floor in Miyapur and has not come downstairs since Ramzan because of a broken lift, so this one hurts. The extra 500 for painting the wall made me laugh, ours asked for a new gate last year and the old gate was fine. I would be careful about stopping payment though. Our neighbours did that and the committee cut their water for two days.

Our lift in Tarnaka did the same last year, three weeks down and the part was arriving every Monday. It got fixed only after ten of us signed one letter and handed it to the committee with a date on it. The generator diesel figure you mentioned would be my first question. Ask for the fuel purchase bills, not the summary, because the summary is where numbers hide.