How to check whether your flat in on forest land

There is huge confusion about the Forest Land Issue in Mumbai, where flat owners have been left with little or no information about the legality of their flats.

The state has failed to provide information about the plot numbers to the public at large. However, the state has provided this information to the Registrar's office. Thus when you go to register your flat, the registrar will check your flat details and may refuse to register the flat if it is on an affected plot.

Prospective flat buyers can call the following numbers 022-22634567, 022-26891161, 022-22630742 or visit their nearest collectors office (of the place where they intend to buy the flat) to find out whether they are buying flats that are located on forest land or not.

Buyers are cautioned that there exists two lists of plots, one official and other being circulated by conniving real estate agents and builders to hoodwink the buyers into buying flats that are actually on forest land. Extreme caution is advised in buying flats in these areas. As a thumb rule if you buying a flat that lies on the east of the Western Express Highway, Ghodbunder Road or West of the LBS Marg, there are chances that the plots may be in forest land and may best be avoided.

Flat Buyers Unite...

Today a report in Times of India talks about Builders uniting and forming a cartel to keep real estate prices artificially inflated till Diwali. The reason being citied for such a move is that the builders have purchased their land at very high prices and will suffer losses if they chose to reduce prices.

What a lot of horse shit! Who told them to go and buy land at such prices? Property prices have risen by 300% all over the city making it extremely difficult for a middle class family to own a house. Coupled with very high interest rates ranging between 11.5 to 12.5% per annum, the middle class can only dream of owning a house.

A 800 square feet flat costs 24,00,000 in distant Mira Road. On top of this the stamp duty and registration charges further inflate the price. Builders are illegally selling open and covered parking spaces too! For a final price of 27,00,000 you will get a loan of 23,00,000 and at 1200/- per lac per month the installment would come to 27,600/- This should be 40% of your take home salary, meaning that you should have a salary of 45,000 per month. You have to pay this installment for 20 years and if you opt for floating rate of interest, it would mean that the 20 years can easily stretch to 23 or 25 years.

It is therefore time for the buyers to unite and boycott purchase of any property that is expensive.

How do you decide what is expensive? Typically the best of construction costs 1200/- per square feet. Given the variable of land cost and allowing decent profit of 30% a 800 square feet flat in Mira Road should cost about 2300/- per square feet. Therefore a fair price for such a flat should be around 18,40,000 and not more. Please be aware construction costs vary between 550/- per square feet to 1200/- per square feet, therefore for a unscrupulous builder there is still a very big margin to play with.

Buyers should decide to wait out the sellers and only purchase flats when prices become reasonable. For example a flat is Vadodara is being sold @ 1275/- per square feet. Obviously the seller there too is making money! Why such high costs in Mumbai? Reason being greed of the builders who have bought land left-right and center in the hope of selling the same at a hefty profit but now their plans are coming undone. It will be very interesting to watch as the situation develops.

How To Handle Customer Complaints

Mar. 04, 2008

By Kevin Stirtz, Stirtz Group LLC


Fifteen years ago I had a complaint at a very well known Italian restaurant in Minneapolis. I still remember how badly the employee responded to my concern. In fact, I’ve used it in my customer service seminars. It shows the power we all have to give our customers a memorable experience.

Here are some rules I teach in my seminars to help people handle customer complaints. If you and your staff follow these rules you can turn unhappy customers into loyal cheerleaders for your business.

1. Listen completely

Give them your complete attention. Don’t multi-task. Don’t “half-listen”. Write down what they are telling you and get specifics from them. Then confirm that you understand. Focus only on them.

Read rest of the article here http://www.customerthink.com/blog/how_handle_customer_complaints

Relief for Forest Land Flat Owners

People owning flats on so called forest land can heave a sigh of relief.

According to reports appearing in most of the newspapers today, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has assured the flat owners that the state government will be filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court accepting its mistake of not notifying the forest lands acquired by it and delaying the mutation of the land records.

The Chief Minister has assured that flat owners / builders will have to pay a fine of .70 to 1.40 rupees per square feet of their flat area as penalty to regularize the flats. Therefore, if you have a flat measuring 1000 square foot you will have to pay a minimum penalty of 700 and a maximum of 1400 rupees to regularize your flats.

This money will be used for creating forests at an alternate location.

Also other plots that were acquired for forest purposes will be allowed to be constructed upon as relief to those plot owners who did not benefit from the errors of the government.

Mumbaikars can travel to these forests to breathe fresh air!

Such a peaceful day...

Yesterday (22nd April, 2008) the Auto Rickshaws were off Mumbai's roads. It was such a peaceful day driving around. It almost felt that the city had gone to sleep.

I could get from home at Mira Road to my office at Dahisar in 10 minutes flat. There were no traffic snarls at the Octroi Check post, no traffic at the toll naka and absolutely no waiting at traffic signals. In fact the traffic signals were put on the blink as there was practically no need to control the non-existing traffic!

All this was in protest against the State Governments decision to implement Electronic Meters in Taxi's and Auto-Rickshaw's. The drivers and owners do not want to have anything with this scheme. They say it is an unnecessary financial burden. The real reason may be that they will not be able to tinker with these meters once installed. I am sure there must be a host of companies that would stand to benefit it the decision was to be implemented.

I am also sure the common people would also stand to benefit it this decision was implemented. The Government is tasked with the responsibility of protecting the interest of common people, but then which government has actually done this!

It would be such a relief if these ugly tripeds were to disappear for ever, but that is wishful thinking. I am sure, bus travel would be cheaper, safer and environmentally better if the scrounge was to be removed from the suburbs of Mumbai.

People complain about rising prices but when it comes to them, they do not think about walking to a nearby destination but chose to jump into a waiting auto-rickshaw.

Anyway, other than Mumbai, Pune and some other parts of Maharashtra, the auto-rickshaw's and taxi's do not follow any meter system at all, therefore it makes no sense to insist on electronic meters in the first place.

Dear Chief Minister, please ensure that people charge by meters first before thinking of taking the next step of going electronic!

Thane worst affected by Forest Land Issue

According to a report appearing in DNA, Mumbai edition of 27th March 2008, Thane seems to be the worst hit by the Bombay High Court ruling that has termed many housing societies to be on forest land. As many as 25 prominent housing projects are likely to be affected, forest department records show.

Some of the schemes that will be affected are Rutu Enclave, Neelkanth Towers, Vanashree, Sai Krupa Complex, Whizkids, Suraj Water Park and Hiranandani Estate .

Sources in the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) say most of these housing projects were served stop work notices, which the builders ignored.

The TMC has records of all the stop work notices that were issued. Since the notices were issued when the buildings were still under construction, the builders cannot claim that they did not know that the constructions were coming up on forest land, said a senior TMC official. The government can therefore demolish all such projects, the official added.

Residents who have bought flats by shelling out hefty prices are now panicking, but builders and brokers from Thane district are confident of finding a solution to the problem.

The latest observation of the Bombay High Court pertains to about 1,500 hectares of land in Thane city, Kalyan, Murbad, Ulhasnagar, Ambarnath, Navi Mumbai, and Vasai tehsils of Thane district.

Update on Forest Land Issue in Mumbai

This is the list of survey numbers issued by the collectors office for those affected by the recent forest land issue in Mumbai.