A co-operative housing society is a small democracy with its own rule book, and most of its disputes are about whether that rule book was followed. A transfer held up for a no-objection the bye-laws do not require. A member billed for repairs the society should carry. A committee that has not called an annual general meeting in two years.
We act for managing committees — drafting resolutions, notices and replies so that the society’s decisions hold up when they are challenged — and for individual members who need the society to do what the Act already obliges it to do.
What we usually do first
Read the bye-laws the society actually adopted, not the model bye-laws everyone assumes apply. Then the minutes. A surprising number of disputes end once both sides see the same page of the minute book.
When it goes further
Recovery of dues runs through the Registrar under Section 101, which is usually faster than a civil suit. Disputes about the society’s business — membership, elections, the conduct of the committee — are heard by the Co-operative Court under Section 91. We appear before both, and before the High Court where an order needs to be challenged.
Deemed conveyance
Where the builder never conveyed the land and building to the society, Section 11 of the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act lets the society apply to the competent authority for a unilateral, “deemed” conveyance. It is paperwork-heavy and worth doing properly, because redevelopment cannot begin without it.
