Spoorthi Nakshatra

Association Formation

Register Apartment Owner’s Society in Bangalore – COMPLETE GUIDE (Important links at the end)

Have you registered your Apartment’s association as the legal entity?. If you are the owner of flat / Apartment, there must be a group of people form as an Association to represent the Apartment owners if there is a common issue / improvements. In simple terms, association represents the whole community residing in the complex. There are salient advantages on registering the association for your apartment however there are few practical challenges when you choose the association members.

It is not very difficult task for registering the association, it is very simple and takes few days to complete the process. But, it helps you in many ways when there is a legal dispute on the premises. This articles explores the steps to register association in Bangalore and roles for the association members. If you are part of any big apartment premises, please share your experience with our readers.

Association - The Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act 1972 (KAOA)

This act is specific to the residential apartments. But, the difficulty in dealing with this act is to gather all the owners at a time to register the association. However, if the owners are giving the power of attorney to the builder, he can register the association. Because of this difficulties, most of the apartment owners register their association under the act The Karnataka Societies Registration Act 1960.

Society - The Karnataka Societies Registration Act 1960 (KSRA)

Karnataka Societies Registration Act 1960 is intended for the welfare and charity institutions. But, most of the apartments in Bangalore are registered under this act. The associations registered under this act should fall under any of the following:

the promotion of charity;
the promotion of education, science, literature, or the fine arts;
the promotion of sports
the instruction and the diffusion of knowledge relating to commerce or industry or of any other useful knowledge;
the diffusion of political education;
the foundation or maintenance of libraries or reading rooms for general use among the members or open to the public, or of public museums and galleries of painting and other works of art;
the collection of natural history, mechanical and philosophical inventions, instruments or designs;

However if you get confused with above definitions, apartments can be registered under this act. In fact, most of the apartments in Bangalore are registered under this act as suggested by the lawyers. But, the rules under this act is more stricter to follow lot of guidelines like keeping the books up-to-date and get audited which is not easy for the non-accountant professionals who manages this job as the part time.

How to Register your Apartment’s Society?

Most of the apartment owners form an association once they occupy the premises. But, they would be more hesitant on registering the association because of the more work on documents preparation. However, registering an association involves only the following steps.

Under this act any 7 or more members whose age above the 18 years can form the association.
Apartment owners has to provide the memorandum which describes the association name, purpose of the association, who is the authority in the association is legal rights (President) and the complete address of the premises.
Submit the rules and regulations of the apartment which members has to follow.
Enclose the fees applicable for registering the association
If the Registrar finds that memorandum is acceptable, then he will retain the memorandum and issue the certification of registration.

Some of the important points about this act.

Within 18 months from the date of the registration, association has to conduct an annual general meeting with all the members.
In the meeting association members has to produce the report of previous year’s activities and the track record.
The account details has to be audited by a certified auditor before the general meeting. The account ledger should include all the income and expenses and the appropriate bills and receipts for the transactions.
The balance sheet of the association has to be filed with the Registrar on or before the fourteenth day after the general meeting.

Society Management Committee

At the time of registering the association, list of members who are forming the management committee must be presented. The members who are in the committee has more responsibilities and roles than the normal members. This committee consists of President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary.

President

President is highest role in the association. He is responsible for representing the association in case of any legal problem against the association
He has to check the financial statements periodically.
Also signs on contracts if it is approved by the committee.

Treasurer

Treasurer is responsible for maintaining the financial transactions like income and expenses for the association. However, he is not allowed independent rights to access the accounts, he jointly operate account with President and Secretary.
Prepare the reports of balance sheets at the time of general meeting.
Audit the accounts before the general meeting and submit to the registrar.
Maintains documents related to the association in the safe custody.
Has the right to operate bank account and sign on the cheques.

Secretary

Secretary’s responsibilities are to arrange the meeting.
Prepare the meeting minutes to inform the other members who are attended the meeting.
Help the members in case of any problems in the facilities available in the premises.

Member

Attend the general meeting
Pay the dues on time and follow the laws
Right to vote

What is Byelaws for an Association?

The primary responsibility of the management committee is to ensure that proper maintenance of the apartment complex and taking the feedback from the members and implement for the welfare of the association. It is not easy task for an association to convince all the members to accept a specific decision taken by management committee. Then how association would take decision day-by-day activities. What are the powers of management committee?. To effectively manage an apartment, rules and regulations are framed which is called as bye-laws.Every member of the apartment complex has to abide to the bye-laws. In general, adopted bye-laws should have the following details:

Objective of the society
Complete details of the rules and regulations which every member has to follow
Members of the management committee.
Details of managing the income and expenses
Details about maintenance costs, penalties, etc.

Download: Association Memorandum Template (169)

How to Amend Byelaws?

The bye laws adopted by an association can be changed by the govt. or association if any need arises. If association wants to amend any specific rules, it has to be submitted to the registrar for the approval. The new laws will be functional from the data of the approval. Apartment can amend the byelaws in the following ways:

Majority voting the annual general meeting. This has to be supported by the two third of the members.
The management committee has to submit the new laws for the approval.
The committee also has to submit the four copies for the bye laws along with the resolutions passed in the general meeting.
With the signature of the management committee, the form should have the following details:
- Date of the meeting at which amendment is passed
- Number of members in the association
- Number of members who voted in favour of the amendment
- Total number of members present in the meeting

Registrar will accept the laws keeping in mind that it doesn’t affect the co-operative society.On approval, the Registrar will issue a certificate of registration along with the certified copy of the amendment. This is proof of the amendment being successfully registered.

Summary

This article highlights the theoretical knowledge on forming the association for your apartments. However, in reality there may be lot of challenges while managing the association. Also there is not much transactions or financial activities involved for the small apartments. In those cases preparing the balance sheet is cumbersome task. It could be more suitable for the bigger apartments.

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