Now Reading: Mumbai man wins Rs 3.96 lakh after 14-year terrace leakage battle
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Mumbai man wins Rs 3.96 lakh after 14-year terrace leakage battle
A senior citizen from a housing society in Andheri (East), Mumbai, has won Rs 3.96 lakh in compensation for a terrace water leakage that plagued his top-floor flats for 14 years. Mr…
The Story in Brief
A senior citizen from a housing society in Andheri (East), Mumbai, has won Rs 3.96 lakh in compensation for a terrace water leakage that plagued his top-floor flats for 14 years. Mr Shah owned two adjoining apartments (nos. 603 and 604) in the building. In 2006, the society collected Rs 33.58 lakh from 28 flats for major structural repairs, including terrace waterproofing with a 10-year guarantee. Shah paid Rs 1.52 lakh and spent an additional Rs 2.66 lakh on his own repairs, totalling Rs 4.18 lakh.
After the contractor finished waterproofing in May 2007, Shah reported heavy leakage damage to his ceilings, fittings, and furniture. He repeatedly wrote to the society between 2009 and 2011 but got no resolution. The Maharashtra Co-operative Appellate Court ruled on July 4, 2026, that the society failed to fix the defect under its bye-laws. The court noted Shah produced documentary evidence of complaints, while the society did not challenge his evidence in cross-examination.
The Indian Opinion
This verdict cuts through the tired narrative that housing societies can always blame individual owners for maintenance issues. The society had a contractor's 10-year guarantee but tried to pass the cost back to Shah, calling it his problem. The court rightly saw through that: if a society commissions structural work, it owns the responsibility, not the resident below the leak. The real test now is whether housing boards will update their bye-laws to make guarantee enforcement automatic, or leave more seniors to fight decade-long battles for a dry roof.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
