How To Manage Situations When Residents Do Not Pay Maintenance Dues

Apr 28,2014 / By Nimesh / 8 Comments

Collecting dues in a perfect world is un-challenging, in fact fulfilling. You get up early in the morning, stretch your arms, take a big yawn, shake your head and get ready for a work-filled yet lovely and successful day.
But snap back to reality!
You get up, stretch your arms and take a big yawn only to see it quickly fade when you’re reminded of your job of the day-COLLECTING MAINTENANCE DUES!!

And why do you exactly dread this day every month? Because some people simply forget it every month, and some detest the idea of paying their dues.
Now, the question is- How do you remind them to pay for the community services they avail, and what measures do you take if they refuse to pay?

Prevention is better than cure, so you can send them SMS/email reminders well in advance so that maintenance dues do not get lost in the long list of bills to pay (You can use CommonFloor Groups for the same).
If a resident has not paid his maintenance due till the decided due date, you may give a written notification of 12 days extra to make the payment, and then a grace period of 3 days.
If still not paid, discuss with the Management Committee and send a notice to the defaulter.
Post this, you may pass a resolution during an association meeting and send a legal notice to the defaulter after consulting an advocate.
An interest of 12% per annum may be charged on the default amount from the due date to the payment date.
After this, committee may withdraw community borne facilities such as tanker-water, or generator power supplied during a power-cut, or both. In this case, re-connection of services shall be made only if and when full default amount has been paid along with interest incurred. For re-connection of services, defaulter has to additionally pay some amount as penalty.

PS: The above mentioned points are suggestions, and not laws. Please consult your lawyer before implementing any of the above.

Some wise words of advice:
When you set your community’s by-laws, do it carefully and make sure you add a clause on steps/measures to be taken in case a resident continually/regularly defaults on paying their due maintenance amount..

All said and done, remember what the amazing Spider-Man had once said-
‘With great power comes great responsibility.’
So, keep that in mind and keep up the hard work!

Here is a fun video that we made on this topic, do share it with your friends!

If you have effective ideas regarding this subject, or experiences you feel others can benefit from, do share them with us in comments!

Product Updates

Custom Bulk SMS to be suspended During Election Silence Period (Starting 48 hours before election day to end of election day)

Apr 14,2014 / By Nimesh / No Comment

To comply with the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India, no custom bulk SMSes will be allowed to be sent from one party to the other through CommonFloor Groups starting 48 hours before the date of election in your respective cities.

This will not apply in case of SMSes under other categories that have a preset template such as Reminders, Complaints or Invoice/ Receipt of payment.

Bulk custom SMSes will not be sent to a given location starting from 48 hours before the election day of that location (state or union territory) to the end of the election day.
Visit the link below to know exactly which dates will be impacted:
http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/GE2014/Schedule/Home.htm

Also, remember you have a role in shaping your country to become the way you dream it to be. So, do exercise your right to vote to build a better nation for you and your future generations.
Note: Bulk SMS within this duration will not get delivered. Bulk SMSes of a political nature will be marked as spam.

Smart Residential Living

10 Reasons Why You Need an Online Portal To Manage Your Residential Complex

Apr 9,2014 / By Team Commonfloor Groups / 1 Comment

Moving into a great residential complex is often not the beginning of the great time we hope to have. Maintaining what is good is equally important, else an otherwise great living experience can go sour in no time. It is very essential that the residents are well connected with each other, and the day-to-day administration is seamless.

Read on to know why you need an online portal to manage your residential complex and make it a great place to live in!

1) The kick-start: When you move in, your neighbours have your back. A regular milkman, good handyman, reliable maid, you cannot find all these on your own easily. A portal where you can start discussions with neighbors comes in very handy when you move in.

2) Connecting with neighbours: We all have seen neighbours become an extended family over time. It is important you find like-minded people you can depend on. Share hobbies, make tea-time visits, borrow things, arrange baby-sitting, find friends for your children, community living always makes life better. An online portal helps to find them, you can’t be knocking on very door, can you?

3) Complaints redressal: When residential complexes have hundreds of units, everyone has some issue or other at any point of time. How is it possible for your managing committee to track them and resolve them in time? And for you to check the status of your complaint? An online portal helps to assign, track, and escalate complaints.

4) Maintenance dues: For residents, its difficult to remember when to pay dues and how much. For managing committee members, reminding residents, collecting dues, tracking defaulters, and settling excess or deficit is a pain beyond description. An online portal helps send SMS reminders. Payments can be made online and hence easily tracked, and settlements are very easy.

5) Credible Accounting: It is hard to find people with great accounting knowledge and plenty of time at hand, to manage accounting in a residential complex. In such a situation, a portal that is specifically designed so that any resident can manage your community accounts and also be able to handle financial audits, is a great asset.

6) Finding and Managing vendors: If you are a resident, it helps if you can find a plumber or electrician, that someone known to you has already hired. For the management committee, it becomes very important they have contacts, payments, receipts, and contracts in place so that operations run smooth. An online portal can do all this in a few clicks.

7) Events: Don’t we all love fun events and need meetings? You can organize birthday parties or community new year celebrations, send online invites and SMS reminders. Need a quick meeting of all residents to close an issue? Door-to-door is simply an outdated and intrusive method.

8) Using Amenities: The amenities like club house, tennis court in apartments are limited, and it becomes difficult to manage conflicts for use. An online portal helps you book amenities online as needed, and also helps your committee with maintaining them.

9) Polls: Whether to go for waste segregation or rain water harvesting, decisions like these need common consensus before they get implemented. Using online polling helps you arrive at a consensus peacefully.

10) Managing Staff Access: Not every staff member in a committee needs access to all confidential data of your residential complex. An online portal helps managing committee members to regulate staff access levels so that important information is safe, irrespective of staff joining or leaving the management.

Once you have all these 10 factors in place, residential living actually transforms to a well-managed community living. Do share with us what are the main challenges you face in your residential complex, and you could find a solution!

Smart Residential Living

Pet Policies to Keep in Mind When Living in an Apartment

Mar 26,2014 / By Nimesh / 2 Comments

Quite alike adding a little baby to your family, adopting a pet can only come as a bundle of happiness to your already blissful home. This new addition to your home is strictly your responsibility and it is none but your duty to take good care of it, while making sure to not inconvenience your complex neighbours in the process. Some basic pet rules that pet-parents are expected to adhere to are:

1) House-Train Your Pet: It is important to house-train your pet so that urination and defecation in common use areas is avoided.

2) Abide by Government Pet Rules: Remember to vaccinate your pet and get a pet license, to comply with government regulations.

3) Don’t Let Your Pet be a Disturbance: You need to make sure your pet does not cause any damage to your apartment complex or bother any resident in any way possible. Pet droppings on ground should be cleaned up and disposed of properly. Pet litter is not to be flushed in your flat toilets as this can clog your apartment’s sewage system.

4) Show Them Care, Don’t Desert Them: You cannot abandon your pet or leave them without food or water for a long period of time or refrain from taking care of them when they are sick.

5) Keep An Eye On Them, They Belong in your Home: Pets are not allowed to climb up/down into your neighbour’s balconies. Your pet is strictly restricted to your flat not others’.

6) Roaming in Common Areas without Restrain is a Strict No-No: Your pet will not be allowed to roam freely without anyone accompanying it or left tied in a common area unattended. While walking your pet in complex common areas, remember to keep it on a leash. You may also carry it using a pet carrier.

7) Note your Complex’s Pet Weight Limit: There is generally a limit on the weight of a pet allowed to live in an apartment complex. This varies from complex to complex but is generally within 50-60 pounds.

8) Guest Pet Policy: If your guest wants to bring a pet along, remember to get a written approval from your Management Committee, prior to their arrival. All other pet rules apply to your guest’s pet as well.

9) Keep Pet Noise Under Control: Noise is a major concern among neighbours of dog-keepers. Keep this in check by training your dog to be quieter.

The pet policies of an apartment community can be subjected to change (addition or amendment) in case of any meaningful suggestion by its residents.

Product Updates

CommonFloor Apartment Communities is Now CommonFloor Groups

Mar 26,2014 / By Nimesh / No Comment

Like always, we continue to be true to our motto of being innovative and, knowing very well how busy our users are, we try making our features as simple to operate as possible. We are very serious about our usage of the words ‘a comprehensive tool connecting residents & more’ and mean it in every sense of the term.

Why Should you use CommonFloor Groups?

Our tool helps you communicate with other community residents with the help of our various features.
The apartment management tool is literally available for Free! (only pay for advanced features)
Your Data is safe with us. Guaranteed!
Manage all your dues and track your payments.
Get access to Real Estate Classified Ads on the tool.

Upgrades We Recently Integrated
We have recently integrated a few fresh upgrades in our online apartment management application directed at making your experience truly unique and comfortable.
The upgrades are:

New Web site experience: Check out the new avatar: www.commonfloorgroups.com
Help Topics: Now on, you can check out how-to steps relating to operation of a given feature on our apartment management platform. Simply search out a relevant topic and follow steps mentioned to successfully complete a function, here: http://bit.ly/1m3nUV9.
Success Stories:Check out http://www.commonfloorgroups.com/testimonials to know how we became a part of our user’s success stories.
Mobile App: Having CommonFloor Groups as an application on your mobile device can make the tool more accessible and convenient for you to use or pay your dues. This is exactly why we are currenly designing and will be soon bringing out our CommonFloor Groups Mobile App.
Steps Shortened: We analyzed all steps involved in operating each and every feature and did away with redundant or unnecessary ones in an effort to make the process less time-consuming and in turn more efficient.
Our First Book:-Happy Community Living :): This book, that covers all aspects of community living, was inspired by community Management Committees. With this guide book, we hope to make community living and management a much easy affair. Do check it out!

And why have we changed?

To make it easy for you to use the application
To add value to your residential living with high-end technology and path breaking content.

Remember-

There will be no legal effect on the contract.
Your community email address will remain same.
To login to the community, log on to www.commonfloorgroups.com with your existing email id and password.

Do write to us at support@commonfloorgroups.com for your feedback.

We will continue with our persistent efforts to be creative and innovative with CommonFloor Groups.

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