Open Letter to CEO of Unitech Limited Mr. A. K. Yadav
Open Letter to CEO of Unitech Limited Mr. A. K. Yadav
The Issue
Dear Mr. A. K. Yadav,
We are the residents and owners of apartments in Unitech Horizon society and many more of our brothers and sisters in various incomplete but partially occupied projects of Unitech Limited. Today, we present to you our side of story and we hope that you will consider it with compassion and empathy towards homebuyers who have been on the losing end of the deal with Unitech Limited.
The State of Affairs
A smile in one eye, a tear in the other.
As per figures provided by Unitech Limited in its Resolution Framework, there are total 24,604 homebuyers in Unitech Limited’s “Under Development” projects. Of these 12,370 units have been handed over. That’s a remarkable 50-50 ratio.
Therefore, approximately 50% of the consequences of failure of Unitech Limited as a business are currently being faced by the homebuyers who have got their possession. These 50%, the category to which we also belong to, are more unfortunate and unluckier than those who have not got their apartments. The lucky 50% are the ones who have not got their apartments. At least they still have a choice.
We are the unlucky 50%. We are out of choice. We are forced to live with crumbling infrastructure, bad maintenance, and soaring debt. With market price of our apartments prevailing at 50% of our realised purchase price, we cannot even sell our apartments. Even if we consider selling at 50% loss, most of us cannot do so as we do not have registries of our apartments. Our fates are sealed, with our destinies doomed. It’s a sad story of prime of many lives wasted.
Nobody talks about us, neither Unitech Board nor its Resolution frameworks nor Supreme Court nor the Government nor the Competent Authorities. We are those unlucky 50%!
The Prejudice
Abandon ship. Fend for yourself!
Unitech’s priorities are clear from its Resolution Framework. Maintenance of apartments already handed over, is not a priority in there.
Supreme Court of India has worked passionately for our lucky 50% brothers and sisters and is making sure they get a roof on their heads or a suitable compensation. But with no provisioning for handed over apartments, we are left to run our societies with mere 50% of the planned resources. Contrary to the provisions of UP apartment Act, Unitech Limited does not pay the proportionate share of Common Areas maintenance charges for the 50% of the apartments under its possession.
This default is prime cause for soaring debt in maintenance accounts in most of the Unitech’s Under Development Projects. Unitech will never serve a recovery notice to itself. We are left to fend for ourselves.
And, default is like a plague, it spreads. CAM default rates in our societies are among the highest as the defaulters know no action will be taken by Unitech on itself and hence on them. With low collections, there is no money to pay for even the basic necessary services like lifts and electricity for common areas.
We know we are the prejudiced!
The Dilemma
Caught between a rock and a hard place!
Our association was formed 6 years back. UP Apartment Act gives us power to maintain our society ourselves as soon as the association is formed. But we were scared. How could we dare to run our society with just 50% or lesser resources. We could never even imagine comparing our collective resources to the financial might of a multi-crore behemoth business empire.
So, we choose to endure in hope. And we waited. For 10+ years, we have endured the mismanagement of a failed business machinery. Despite having rights to run the maintenance of our society for last 6 years, we choose to take the back seat.
But, instead of improving, things have gone worse. Unitech is not ready to pay its share. The Contractor-Builder nexus is ruling the system. Low quality of services with least accountability is a fertile ground for inferior quality service providers to thrive. The Contractors and not bothered to serve the interests of the residents. They are more happy to serve the interests of Unitech Limited and its officials. For them it is a game of averages. Unitech employs common service providers for many of its projects. These service providers average out their expenses, services and their loyalty! The Unitech officials managing such projects are happy with the arrangements.
For us, it’s a tough choice. We either live in a badly managed society run using 50% of resources, crumbling infrastructure, soaring debt, vendor belligerence and, Unitech Officials’ dictatorship. Or, we try to run the society with our limited resources and fight with the behemoth to get it pay for its share.
And we have made a choice. We will no longer wait for fate to find us. We will make our own destiny. We will run our Common Areas Maintenance operations ourselves.
The Dare
Stir up the hornet's nest.
From the moment we have demanded handover from you, we are at the receiving end of the well-oiled machinery that is Unitech. You have ignored our demands for handover. You have ignored the notice from Competent Authority for handover.
We know, handover for you comes with obligation to pay our Interest Free Maintenance Security, so it’s better for you to ignore the calls.
After months of pleading and notices, we choose to exercise our rights under UP Apartment Act. We have deemed transfer of Common Areas and Facilities Maintenance from the day our Association was formed. We have chosen to exercise that right from 01.01.2023.
And once we did this and collected our “own” money for managing our “own” services in our “own” account, your office is in hyperdrive to punish us.
We have been named in two police complaints. Your “Supreme Court appointed Officials” are threatening us with legal action from “Supreme court Lawyers”. The service providers have been discreetly told to strike or lose any existing business from Unitech. The vendors working for us now are routinely called to your office or threatened over phone of consequences of working with us. You officials send threatening SMEes and WhatsApp messages warning us of Police action for not paying our own money to them. Your officials, whom we have not seen on site for years now are suddenly interested in sitting at site and overseeing how we manage our own money and services. Your people are not releasing payments for past vendors despite we have paid for the same. Though it’s you who have not paid them, we are on the receiving end of action by unpaid vendors. The machinery is trying to break us, at any cost.
The favour
You fear only what you refuse to accept.
We have nothing more to lose. To be honest, it’s not at all scary what we are facing. We are rather amused. Sometimes when we are together walking the lawns of our disintegrating society, we have a good laugh at the kiddish tantrums of your officers.
Your business operations at our society were incurring 20 lacs of loss per month. We did you a favour. We stopped your bleeding. What the hell on earth are your officials so angry about? What did they lose? Can’t you use these motivated and sincere officers to help our luck 50% brothers and sisters in getting a roof on their heads? They sure seem to be motivated enough!
For us, its very simple. Its our money and we choose how to spend it!
Why don’t you and your Officials accept it. There is no more money coming from us to you.
The Request
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
We are still not angry at you or your officials. We will not lodge any police complaints nor we intent to fight with you for we have our shoulders burdened with the job of reviving our crushed dreams. Already we have wasted primes of our lives for a single mistake of believing in Unitech Limited. No more we intent to waste any more of our energies and time in this lost cause.
But we request. Give us space to stand back. Have compassion to understand our misery. Have empathy to understand our frustration. And sometimes when we vent our frustration, please take it with a pinch of salt.
We request you to kindly let us manage our own affairs. We request you to kindly keep your officials away from constantly bothering us. We request you to stop your legal and vendor machinery from filing false cases and complaints against us. We request you to please let us try and rebuild our lost dreams. We request you to please try and pay for the apartments under your possession to ease our burden.
Signed by the residents of Unitech Horizon, by the unluck 50%, by the lucky 50% in solidarity, and by common people who understand our pain.
256
The Issue
Dear Mr. A. K. Yadav,
We are the residents and owners of apartments in Unitech Horizon society and many more of our brothers and sisters in various incomplete but partially occupied projects of Unitech Limited. Today, we present to you our side of story and we hope that you will consider it with compassion and empathy towards homebuyers who have been on the losing end of the deal with Unitech Limited.
The State of Affairs
A smile in one eye, a tear in the other.
As per figures provided by Unitech Limited in its Resolution Framework, there are total 24,604 homebuyers in Unitech Limited’s “Under Development” projects. Of these 12,370 units have been handed over. That’s a remarkable 50-50 ratio.
Therefore, approximately 50% of the consequences of failure of Unitech Limited as a business are currently being faced by the homebuyers who have got their possession. These 50%, the category to which we also belong to, are more unfortunate and unluckier than those who have not got their apartments. The lucky 50% are the ones who have not got their apartments. At least they still have a choice.
We are the unlucky 50%. We are out of choice. We are forced to live with crumbling infrastructure, bad maintenance, and soaring debt. With market price of our apartments prevailing at 50% of our realised purchase price, we cannot even sell our apartments. Even if we consider selling at 50% loss, most of us cannot do so as we do not have registries of our apartments. Our fates are sealed, with our destinies doomed. It’s a sad story of prime of many lives wasted.
Nobody talks about us, neither Unitech Board nor its Resolution frameworks nor Supreme Court nor the Government nor the Competent Authorities. We are those unlucky 50%!
The Prejudice
Abandon ship. Fend for yourself!
Unitech’s priorities are clear from its Resolution Framework. Maintenance of apartments already handed over, is not a priority in there.
Supreme Court of India has worked passionately for our lucky 50% brothers and sisters and is making sure they get a roof on their heads or a suitable compensation. But with no provisioning for handed over apartments, we are left to run our societies with mere 50% of the planned resources. Contrary to the provisions of UP apartment Act, Unitech Limited does not pay the proportionate share of Common Areas maintenance charges for the 50% of the apartments under its possession.
This default is prime cause for soaring debt in maintenance accounts in most of the Unitech’s Under Development Projects. Unitech will never serve a recovery notice to itself. We are left to fend for ourselves.
And, default is like a plague, it spreads. CAM default rates in our societies are among the highest as the defaulters know no action will be taken by Unitech on itself and hence on them. With low collections, there is no money to pay for even the basic necessary services like lifts and electricity for common areas.
We know we are the prejudiced!
The Dilemma
Caught between a rock and a hard place!
Our association was formed 6 years back. UP Apartment Act gives us power to maintain our society ourselves as soon as the association is formed. But we were scared. How could we dare to run our society with just 50% or lesser resources. We could never even imagine comparing our collective resources to the financial might of a multi-crore behemoth business empire.
So, we choose to endure in hope. And we waited. For 10+ years, we have endured the mismanagement of a failed business machinery. Despite having rights to run the maintenance of our society for last 6 years, we choose to take the back seat.
But, instead of improving, things have gone worse. Unitech is not ready to pay its share. The Contractor-Builder nexus is ruling the system. Low quality of services with least accountability is a fertile ground for inferior quality service providers to thrive. The Contractors and not bothered to serve the interests of the residents. They are more happy to serve the interests of Unitech Limited and its officials. For them it is a game of averages. Unitech employs common service providers for many of its projects. These service providers average out their expenses, services and their loyalty! The Unitech officials managing such projects are happy with the arrangements.
For us, it’s a tough choice. We either live in a badly managed society run using 50% of resources, crumbling infrastructure, soaring debt, vendor belligerence and, Unitech Officials’ dictatorship. Or, we try to run the society with our limited resources and fight with the behemoth to get it pay for its share.
And we have made a choice. We will no longer wait for fate to find us. We will make our own destiny. We will run our Common Areas Maintenance operations ourselves.
The Dare
Stir up the hornet's nest.
From the moment we have demanded handover from you, we are at the receiving end of the well-oiled machinery that is Unitech. You have ignored our demands for handover. You have ignored the notice from Competent Authority for handover.
We know, handover for you comes with obligation to pay our Interest Free Maintenance Security, so it’s better for you to ignore the calls.
After months of pleading and notices, we choose to exercise our rights under UP Apartment Act. We have deemed transfer of Common Areas and Facilities Maintenance from the day our Association was formed. We have chosen to exercise that right from 01.01.2023.
And once we did this and collected our “own” money for managing our “own” services in our “own” account, your office is in hyperdrive to punish us.
We have been named in two police complaints. Your “Supreme Court appointed Officials” are threatening us with legal action from “Supreme court Lawyers”. The service providers have been discreetly told to strike or lose any existing business from Unitech. The vendors working for us now are routinely called to your office or threatened over phone of consequences of working with us. You officials send threatening SMEes and WhatsApp messages warning us of Police action for not paying our own money to them. Your officials, whom we have not seen on site for years now are suddenly interested in sitting at site and overseeing how we manage our own money and services. Your people are not releasing payments for past vendors despite we have paid for the same. Though it’s you who have not paid them, we are on the receiving end of action by unpaid vendors. The machinery is trying to break us, at any cost.
The favour
You fear only what you refuse to accept.
We have nothing more to lose. To be honest, it’s not at all scary what we are facing. We are rather amused. Sometimes when we are together walking the lawns of our disintegrating society, we have a good laugh at the kiddish tantrums of your officers.
Your business operations at our society were incurring 20 lacs of loss per month. We did you a favour. We stopped your bleeding. What the hell on earth are your officials so angry about? What did they lose? Can’t you use these motivated and sincere officers to help our luck 50% brothers and sisters in getting a roof on their heads? They sure seem to be motivated enough!
For us, its very simple. Its our money and we choose how to spend it!
Why don’t you and your Officials accept it. There is no more money coming from us to you.
The Request
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
We are still not angry at you or your officials. We will not lodge any police complaints nor we intent to fight with you for we have our shoulders burdened with the job of reviving our crushed dreams. Already we have wasted primes of our lives for a single mistake of believing in Unitech Limited. No more we intent to waste any more of our energies and time in this lost cause.
But we request. Give us space to stand back. Have compassion to understand our misery. Have empathy to understand our frustration. And sometimes when we vent our frustration, please take it with a pinch of salt.
We request you to kindly let us manage our own affairs. We request you to kindly keep your officials away from constantly bothering us. We request you to stop your legal and vendor machinery from filing false cases and complaints against us. We request you to please let us try and rebuild our lost dreams. We request you to please try and pay for the apartments under your possession to ease our burden.
Signed by the residents of Unitech Horizon, by the unluck 50%, by the lucky 50% in solidarity, and by common people who understand our pain.
256
Petition created on 6 February 2023