Act amended to enable associations of housing project form

The West Bengal Assembly on Wednesday amended an Act to enable associations of a housing project to form a federation to look after the maintenance and management of common areas and facilities enjoyed by all apartment owners of it.

The West Bengal Apartment Ownership (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was passed in the assembly.

The West Bengal Apartment Ownership Act, 1972 was enacted to provide for the ownership of an individual and to make such apartment heritable and transferable property.

The envisaged formation of association of apartment owners that will take care of maintenance and management of common areas and facilities related with every apartment within a building.

At that time, there was no concept of large complexes or township development consisting of large number of apartments of different user groups, different income groups and the like.

There was only the concept of stand-alone building consisting of a few apartments for which a single association was adequate to maintain and manage the common areas and facilities related to apartments.

During the last four decades, the housing industry has come a long way and the last decade has witnessed development of not only stand-alone high rises but also large complexes with multiple residential provisions such as high rises, row houses, plotted development, commercial facilities etc. The same has paved way for development of townships or mass housings.

It is seen that there are some common facilities which are enjoyed by all the apartment owners of a large complex or township which are not exclusive to a particular group of apartment owners.

Maintenance of this type of common areas and facilities require a federation of all the associations within a project which will take care of the maintenance and management of such common areas and facilities enjoyed by all the apartment owners within a project.