What are Maintenance Charges?How it is calculated?

Maintenance charges paid by house owners are the only way to keep surroundings of your housing society clean and clear. Every apartment or house owner living in the housing society has to pay a certain amount every month to the housing board or the body elected by the society. This maintenance collected from the house owners is used to create clean living around your housing society. Many house owners pay their maintenance charges to the

  the society or not? Maintenance amount is spent judicially for the society’s benefits or not? These questions need to be answered to make your maintenance payment worth something.

To make you aware of all the things related to the maintenance charges we pen down some essentials of the maintenance charge which would help you track your maintenance charges paid in the housing societies.

What are Maintenance Charges?Maintenance charges are the charges paid to the housing society for the maintenance of the housing society including the various repair works in the society. Maintenance charges must be paid to the housing society every month by each and every apartment/house owner having unit in the society. The housing society is liable to maintain all the records of the money spent on the various maintenance needs in the society.

How maintenance charges are calculated?Maintenance charges is the considerable sum of money which needs to be paid every month by the people living in the apartment or housing societies for the various maintenance needs of the societies. The primary methods by which maintenance charges are calculated are as follows:

• Pay Per Square Feet  Method
• Flat Monthly Fee Method
• Partial Flat Rate Method
• Combined Maintenance Charge Method

Know more about the four types of method used to calculate maintenance charges in the housing societies click here…

Charges collected as maintenanceEvery housing society has a managing committee appointed by the residents of the society which decides the charges payable by each and every housing unit in the society. Charges collected by the housing society mostly include:

• Water Charges
• Common Electricity charges
• Common repair work charges
• Service charges
• Car parking charges
• Maintenance of various attributes like lifts, stairways etc.
• Interest on defaulted charges
• Insurance charges
• Lease rent
• Non-occupancy charges
• Other charges

The society includes various services which are included in the service charges these include salaries of the working class in the society like office staff, life men, watchmen, gardeners and various other employees; electricity and water charges of the society office; travelling allowance and conveyance charges to the staff; printing and stationary charges for the office.

Keep an eye on the body to avoid misuseUsually all house owners and residents of the housing society think that once they pay their maintenance their work is done. But you need to make sure that the maintenance you paid must be used for common benefits of the dwellers. The corruption in the housing societies is not a new thing; you need to keep an eye on the body to avoid any misleading use of the maintenance money.

Make sure that you are aware of the rules and regulations governing the housing societies to stand against them if you found any corruption in the use of maintenance charges.

Rules governing the housing societies vary depending on the regions where the society is located. Every state in the country may have different rules and regulations.                   

Maintenance charges paid in the housing society must be well used for the maintenance work of the society, and making sure that the money is used according to the significantrules and regulations of the housing society is a job of every house owner of the society.