Charging customers for car parking space-violation of SC order
According to a Supreme Court verdict in 2010, a developer of a housing complex cannot charge members for parking space. The ruling said the developers cannot sell open spaces and stilt areas in their buildings as these are meant for common use and form part of the flats.
I-T officials who raided the Lodha Group offices and residential premises of senior executives of the group last week acted on a tip off that payment for car parking space was made in cash. Therefore, when the I-T officials confronted Lodha officials with evidence of receiving payments in cash, the group admitted to unaccounted cash receipts of Rs 200 crore. A significant portion of the cash seizure was made after opening bank lockers, some of which are in the names of the company’s employees. The I-T sleuths also seized cash of Rs 8 crore from the group’s premises.
Lodha Group had been charging customers for car parking space. Income Tax officials are examining how many of the car parking spaces were sold before the Supreme Court verdict.
Lodha Group is Mumbai’s premier real estate developer dealing in residential and commercial properties.The realtor emerged the highest bidder in the biggest-ever land deal in the city at an auction held by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority in July last year. Lodha Developers had bid . 4,050 crore to lease a 25,000-sq mt plot for 65 years. MMRDA also offered the right to construct up to 4,95,000 sq mt, almost 20 times the plot area to the highest bidder. Lodha plans to build an inter-state truck terminal — which is the MMRDa’s requirement — apart from upmarket housing.
Charging customers for car parking, Mumbai, Mumbai Builders, Mumbai Properties, Parking lots, parking space to apartment buyers, stilt, Supreme Court
