When we rent out properties of our clients, the rental agreement (Leave and License Agreement) that we sign requires the tenant to transfer the rent directly to owner's account every month.

We have noticed that many tenants in Pune do not bother to pay rent on time; common reason given is "my previous owner did not care'. This practice needs to stop....

Please make sure that you check your bank account by the 10th of every month and inform us if you do not see the rent credited in your account.

Mandatory police verification of tenants

Many property owners ask us why we push them to submit tenant information to the police.. the answer is it is mandatory by law and is an offense punishable with jail.

Please read recent news excerpt below:

Kondhwa cops file most cases against flat owners:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Kondhwa-cops-file-most-cases-against-flat-owners/articleshow/51421159.cms

Police had jailed around 700 flat owners last year and this year the count is expected to be more. As per police authorities, majority of the flat owners were NRIs / Non-Resident Pune-ites. Their parents or relatives had found a tenant directly and did not follow the rule of submitting tenant information to the police.

It is important to note that tenant information has to be submitted to the police again when rental agreement is renewed.

We are now in Bangalore!

Cura is glad to announce its expansion of services to Bangalore (officially called Bengaluru). We will be focusing on buying, managing (rent and maintain) and selling properties in the following areas of Bangalore:

Indiranagar, Marathahalli, Whitefield, HSR Layout, Koramangala, BTM Layout, Sarjapur Road ,Brookefield

Email us at info@mycuraservices.com for
services related to properties in these areas.

Our office address in Bangalore is:
No.12, SMS Layout, 19th Cross 20th Main,
5th phase, JP Nagar, Bengaluru-560078

Please pass on this message to your friends and relatives who may be interested in property related services in Bangalore.

With effect from 15 November 2015, Government has imposed 0.5% Swachh Bharat cess on taxable services. With the imposition of the cess, service tax rate will go up from 14% to 14.5% on all taxable services in India.

You will also see a marginal increase (less than Rs 20) in our total service charges levied after October 2015 after since we are expected to add the 0.5% service tax over the previous 14% service tax on our charges.

Last year we had sent you a client bulletin with a newspaper clipping (attached) of - Pune police arresting 700+ property owners for not completing tenant police verification. http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/over-700-property-owners-arrested-for-not-keeping-police-in-the-loop-about-tenants/1149612/

Also around 12,000 odd property owners were let go after paying hefty fines. Pune police has just started their annual drive of collecting data on rentals from housing societies and local agents. Similar to last year, they will be levying fines and/or arresting owners who are not submitting tenant information to the police.

We have also come across many property owners and their parents (Power of Attorney holders of owners) who do not submit the police verification of tenants. Society Committee have complained in many AGMs that owners especially those of not living in Pune) are not completing PV of tenants esp. Bachelors staying in the house.

CALL TO ACTION: If you have any friends/relatives who have properties in Pune, please let them know about this drive and ask them to complete the police verification of their tenants.

Aadhaar Card is becoming increasingly important as an identity proof and address in India.

Main Features:

• Aadhaar Card serves as a proof of identity and address anywhere in India.
• It is a 12 digit individual identification number issued by the UIDAI.
• It is the world's largest biometric identification system (retina and finger scan)
• Copy of your Aadhaar Card can be printed online.

The big advantage of having an Aadhaar Card for property owners is that it enables online registration of Leave and License agreement. It saves you upto 40% on registration fee. The registration is possible only if the owners / POA holders as well as the tenants have Aadhaar Card.

Get your Aadhaar Card on your next India trip!

Index- II is the most important document for your property.

We have prepared a small video describing the "Index-II".

Must see for everyone!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o9lgUWB6Mg

Our new service will immensely help those who want to:

• Invest in a plot in Pune or its vicinity to get good returns
• Buy a plot to construct their home in the future
• Keep encroachments in check for existing plots
• Obtain title papers for plots
• Change ownership papers of their inherited plots
• Sell plots - inherited or self acquired

P.S. - Please pass on this message to your relatives and friends who may be interested in our new service.

Poor rainfall in Maharashtra (and many parts of India) this year has led to a major decline in the water level across the state. To deal with water shortage in the city, Pune Municipal Corporation has announced water cuts in Pune. Water will now be supplied every alternative day in all areas of the city.

If you have rented your flat in Pune, your tenants are likely to face a water shortage and demand installation of water storage tank in your property.

Please find attached the latest clipping of Times of India & Sakal newspapers for your reference.

In the last few years, we have successfully sold properties in and around Pune for many clients who made good returns. However, there were also a large number of properties that could not be sold. In most cases, the buyer cancelled the sale process midway after realizing that the owner did not have the title/legal papers of the property required by his bank for obtaining a housing loan.

Many property owners in Pune wonder why rents in Pune are low. After managing properties for 5 years, we have noticed the following common reasons for this:

1. Lack of homework on rental rates by some property owners combined with power of social media effectively used by the tenant. We have seen this to be the most common reason - Owners not understanding current rental for different levels of furnishing. Recent example: We rented an unfurnished 1 BHK flat in Hinjewadi for 11,000 earlier this month which is the current market rate in the building. The neighbouring flat owner rents out his fully furnished 1 BHK for the same rent of 11000. His tenant posts a message on his company's bulletin board that 'rent for a fully furnished 1 BHK flat Hinjewadi is Rs 11000'. Now all prospective tenants have started negotiating for reducing the rent of unfurnished flats to 7000.

2. Road ride agents who get lured by tenant's offer of getting a higher commission if he negotiates a lower rent with the owner. Road-side brokers, agents and even some security guards and society managers communicate lower market rents to owners in hopes of getting extra brokerage from the tenants by giving the tenant a good deal.

3. Mistakes by friends and relatives in making their rent amount public. Sometimes, owners rent out their flats to their relatives or close friends. Given the relationship, owners tend to lower the rent when giving the flats to their near ones. These friends or relatives tend to discuss the rent with the neighbouring tenants. This causes the neighbouring tenants to renegotiate the rent with the owners.

4. Discounting the rent heavily when renting to corporate: Many owners rent out their properties to get corporate in hopes of getting a long term rental and someone who will maintain their property properly. Given ample supply of rental properties for corporate and less demand for corporate rentals, these corporates tend to negotiate a lower rent with the owner and also negotiate for favourable terms such as furnished properties and house painting at owners cost every 2 years.

All these factors lead to pressure on rent. We suggest that owners do their homework when determining rent for their property and impact of their rental quotes on other properties in the building or society.

Over the last month, we have received a flurry of calls from NRIs and land buyers who had purchased plots in Silent Valley Homes land plotting scheme in Mulshi between 2007 and 2010. All of them wanted help to solve the show-cause notices served on them by the government to confiscate their land. Many of these buyers were probably referred by you or other Cura clients. Although investing in land can be more profitable than investing in residential or commercial property, it is important to do your homework before buying land. We thought of sharing some important learning points to keep in mind when buying land in Maharashtra so that you do not 'land' into legal issues.

• An NRI CANNOT buy agricultural land in Maharashtra. He is allowed to buy Non-Agricultural (usually called NA) land only in Maharashtra.
• Even Resident Indians cannot buy Agricultural land in India if they are not 'agriculturists' i.e. if they do not have Farmer Certificate (called Shetkari Dakhla in Marathi)
• Resident and Non-Resident Indians can however INHERIT agricultural land in Maharashtra.

When we visit property expo and exhibitions in Pune and vicinity, we hear many land developers telling NRIs that it is legal for anyone to buy agricultural land in Maharashtra and many NRIs have purchased agricultural plots from them in the past. Please do your checks before believing in such statements. If you wish to invest in or buy land near Pune, we can help you buy the right plot of land. Please reach out to us for our Property Buying Services.

We are excited to announce the launch of our newly redesigned Cura Website! The site was redesigned with the intent of providing:

We used to offer property buying and selling services only to a few of our longstanding clients. In the last couple of years, we have successfully helped them get good returns on investment.

Now that we have built a strong capability in buying and selling properties in and around Pune, we have opened up these services to all clients. We will help buy and sell - flats, bungalows, resort homes, senior citizen living, and more importantly plots of land, shops and offices. We will continue to provide our property management service to Non-Resident Puneites only.

Couple of other important points:

1. We have included many FAQs and good reading material related to Pune properties on our web pages. We plan to include more FAQs to answer your questions.

2. All our periodic bulletins that we send via email will also be available on our blog: http://blog.mycuraservices.com/

For clients who have signed up our property management agreement: To access your client statement, click Payments on our homepage. On the page, the link is given on the last line under Client Portal. Your login credentials remain the same. You can also access your account statement on this webpage: http://mycuraservices.com/clientportal.html

Please refer our website to your loved ones, friends, relatives and colleagues.

P.S. We are working with our web designers to make our site responsive to all commonly used devices including tables and smartphones.

Are managing committees of societies allowed to ban bachelors, students, and foreigners etc. as tenants?

Legally, the answer is NO. Societies cannot ban bachelor or foreigners from renting any flats in the society. The Constitution of India promotes equal opportunity for housing and living for all. It does NOT allow any housing society to ban tenants or buyers based on criteria such as age, marital status, caste, religion, nationality etc.

SO why are committees making such weird rules and enforcing them in Pune?
Well, it just not Pune. It's happening in other metros as well such as Bangalore and Hyderabad. Most committee members know that they were bachelors at some point in their life and it's not fair to prevent owners from renting flats to bachelors. However, they are being forced to take the extreme step due to the following reasons:

1. Change in lifestyle and behavioural issues especially with the 'next generation' is causing increasing nuisance to neighbours

Frequently heard of issues created by bachelor-tenants:
1. Inviting friends – both boys and girls late night in the house, late night parties, loud music, heavy smoking in the terraces, chatting in terraces by bachelors become s a major nuisance to neighbours.
2. 24 X 7 working of IT and BPO companies and late night shifts has led to these employees thinking that its okay or normal to play music in the house, play sports on the society or swim in the society swimming pool late at night. This creates a major nuisance to neighbours.
3. Statistics shows that theft and break-ins rates are high in the societies where bachelor-tenants are more.
2. Continuously changing 'tenants' and resulting issues to societies:
frequent job transfers and onsite (foreign) assignment, bachelors tenants continue to change frequently. Also, many of these bachelors make it a group-like or hostel like living thereby causing nuisance to neighbours. With changing bachelors, it becomes a nightmare for societies to administer if police verification has been done for all tenants staying in the house.
3. Lack of co-operation and compliance by Non-resident owners and especially NRIs is making the matter worse:
This is the bigger issue in societies which forces the committee to implement this rule. There are many owners who have rented flats to bachelors since they pay a higher rent in Pune and do not care if whether their tenants do not follow society rules. We have experienced owners test patience level of managing committee members by giving excuses when committees complain about nuisance being created by their bachelor-tenants:

1. You cannot complain about nuisance created by my tenants. Managing committee has itself failed in its role. My tenants are already facing challenges in the society such as shortage of water.
2. Since I am living out of Pune, how can the society expect me to complete the police verification of the tenants and check that who is actually living there?
3. These are young; it is very natural of them to have late night parties. Even you and me used to have parties and friends late at night when we were bachelors.
4. Guest house and service apartments have ever changing tenants. How can I control their behaviour?

What can non-resident owners so solve this issue in the long term?

1. Comply with legal formalities: Provide the registered rental agreement to the society
2. Comply with police formalities: Complete police verification of ALL bachelors staying in the house. Many owners have been put in jail for not doing this.
3. Know your tenants – know who exactly is living there. Also have their detailed information including their parents contact details.
4. Set clear expectations with the tenants about following society rules and not creating nuisance for others
5. Take appropriate disciplinary action when complaints are received from the society.
6. Spread the word – educate your friends and relatives about this issue and ask them to be 'responsible owners' when renting out flats in Pune.