Builders, do you look after the interests of your clients ?

Vivek Shukla
At the outset, just consider two situations. When you buy car or two –wheeler, the auto company gives you free service for certain period of time and look after the maintenance job of your vehicle for donkey years. And just spare a thought for Realtors. You buy residential or commercial property from realty firm for huge sum. And once the deal is sealed, Realtor more often than not feels that he is not duty bound to serve his /her clients. What a pity.

Surprisingly for a change, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has decided to maintain the flats after their allotment. For the first time, DDA will now provide maintenance of the flats that are part of its latest housing scheme for the next 30 years.
DDA will maintain the usually neglected common areas like staircases and shafts of the flats that it will allot. A large number of the nearly 16,000 flats that are part of the new housing scheme will enjoy DDA’s healing touch. The allot tees, however, will have to pay a one-time lump sum amount for the maintenance.
While DDA realized its responsibility towards allottees of their flats,will other builders too rise equal to the occasion in order to provide much needed after sale service to their clients ?
In a very candid admission, Sanjay Khanna,Director,Kailashnath Projects Pvt.Ltd, says that generally it can be safely said that realty firms hardly look after the affairs of buildings they build. Due to their sheer apathy towards all those who buy flats,the buildings start decaying after some years.

Coming back to DDA,the cost of the houses in the new scheme will now include the cost of maintenance. Allot tees of flats with lifts will have to pay 15 per cent of the total amount as one-time maintenance amount and allottees of flats in up to five-storey buildings will pay 12 per cent. DDA will now plaster the facade of apartment blocks, repair staircases, railings, balconies and floors and also take care of the common drainage lines.
Sunil Jindal, CEO of NCR-based realty firm, SVP group, says they are operating with “a maintenance team whom we outsourced look after the affairs of our projects. It address all the issues of our customers. You can not survive in the market without taking care of the interests of your clients.” He adds that they have have deputed technically sound people who can manage the smooth operations of the complex.
However, an expert of realty affairs said, “I have observed that as maintenance of apartments and commercial buildings is not a great business opportunity, most of the realty firms extend maintenance facility only during the first year or till such time a resident association is formed, purely on a no-profit no-loss basis. The corpus collected is accounted for and the remaining funds handed back to the association for relevant maintenance activities.”
It is no secret that residential and commercial buildings that look good and impressive are maintained by dedicated maintenance teams. Maintaining a building is not all about housekeeping and cursory maintenance. Far from being confined to plumbing and electrical work, maintenance of these complexes extends to include a host of items that require a fully functional office and maintenance staff on call round-the-clock.

Understandably, maintaining a complex not only includes housekeeping and round-the-clock emergency maintenance but also beautification and maintenance of gardens and common areas, security, to name a few.
RK Sinha, CMD of noted security service SIS India Ltd, says that they had started an upkeep service for residential and commercial buildings and the response was very encouraging. “Within a couple of months of starting our new business, we started getting a barrage of queries from both small and big cities, for managing buildings,” he says. According to journalist-turned-entrepreneur Sinha, the service is typically managed by a manager and office personnel, complete with a wireless network to track field staff.
Alimuddin Rafi Ahmed, CMD of realty firm ILD group, says: “While we extend the facility of lifetime maintenance, it is certainly not because it is an added business opportunity but merely to ensure the development is well taken care of.” According to him, apartment maintenance is more of a bother than money earner. He,however, accepts the fact that this is one area which deserves attention from realty players.
Realty market watchers say that maintenance is the key to the upkeep of a residential complex. The going rate is around Rs one to Rs1.50 per sq ft for a normal residential complex with facilities like lifts, swimming pool, power backup. But complexes with a golf courses, etc, will have high rate of around Rs 3 per sq ft. All good things come at a cost, so does maintenance of a nice residential complex. This is like owning a luxury car, which naturally has high maintenance cost, spare parts are expensive. Similarly, maintenance cost of apartments with golf courses, luxurious specifications is high.
This fact should however be made clear by developers to prospective buyers. Paying high maintenance of Rs 2 psf, is not practical for a buyer of affordable home in the range of Rs 30 lakh to Rs 50 lakh, as he has budgeted for the EMI and doesn’t expect high monthly maintenance cost.
There is a clear-cut consensus among realty experts that any property, howsoever magnificently built, will deteriorate and lose its grandeur if not managed with the right approach.
A building managed by a reputed property manager helps enhance the company’s image and gives it the edge in marketing its properties, especially under the present tight market conditions where people seek better value for money that they are investing.
Professional service and maintenance can always be achieved by hiring good vendors, Jindal feels. Talking about co-operative societies, marketing professional and social worker of East Delhi, Pavan Dhir says that there is an attitude of indifference or lack of consensus on matters related to maintenance of the society, resulting in delays in decisions on building repairs, renovations, and so on. A professional approach and outsourcing of property management helps carry out the jobs in time and also check deterioration of the structure.
It is learnt that there are a few international players in this business, ie, Knight Frank, Brooke Insignia, CB Richard Ellis and Sodexo. The few Indian companies that match these big names are IPM&SL, Radhakrishna Hospitality, etc. It is learnt that Richard Ellis, which manages properties measuring over 10.8 million square feet in India. In Chennai, they manage 1.3 million square feet at Tidal Park, another 3.75 lakh square feet at Raheja Towers, and 68,000 square feet at ITC Centre.
Alimuddin Rafi Ahmed, CMD of realty firm ILD group, says that unlike in the west, professional facilities management of buildings is a new concept in India. “I sincerely feel that after developers construct and sell their products to customers, experts should be given the responsibility of managing the properties. They will always do a better job.”
At the end, Sanjay Khanna is of the view that builders should give utmost priority to the affairs of the clients post sealing dealings with them. It is better for them to create a dedicate department which only look after upkeep of the building as well as other issues of their clients.