Holding An Ill-Will Could Cost You Property Ownership

There is one basic advice that all real estate experts would invariably give you ─ since this is a transaction that has far-reaching financial implications, let your emotions not get the better of you at any stage; this is a matter where you should let your head take over and not your heart. This is why you are told to apply due diligence and be patient while carrying out property transactions; hasty moves might land you in trouble, to be sure.

However, this is not where the role of emotional equilibrium, or emotional prudence, if you may, ends.  Maintaining emotional equilibrium would decide whether you retain the ownership, too. Those fortunate ones who inherit a property from their parents should especially be mindful. Do not lose sight of the fact that your emotional complexities could also become a cause of you losing your ownership over a property.

Sample this.

After his father went for a second marriage after the death of his mother, a Mumbai-based a man made his father transfer 50 per cent share of his flat in a housing society. This transfer took place in May, 2014. After becoming an equal owner in the property, the son along with his wife caused such domestic troubles that the elderly couple had to vacate the property, prompting them to reach out to the sub-divisional revenue office to seek relief. Acting on their plea, the Sub-Divisional Office in March last year declared the share transfer to the son as illegal, invoking Sections 5 and 23 of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007. Subsequently, the son moved the Bombay High Court (HC) challenging the move. The HC recently dismissed his plea, ruling in favour of the elderly father.

A 76-year-old woman was also granted the sole possession of her flat in Mumbai’s Dombivali after it was found that her son and daughter-in-law were harassing her, asking her to transfer the property in the daughter in-law’s name.

The Punjab and Haryana HC has also recently ruled that parents could revoke property transfers made to their children in case they are being harassed by them.

Giving its verdict in a case where a son opposed eviction from his father’s property, claiming it was an ancestral home, the Delhi High Court has ruled that harassed parents can evict their children from any type of property. The nature of the property, ruled the HC, would in no manner act a deterrent in eviction of children and legal heirs who ill-treat their elderly parents. The court ruled that after an amendment in the Delhi Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens (Amendment) Rules, 2017, through which the term “self-acquired was done away with, seniors can apply for eviction of their “son, daughter and legal heir from the property of any kind ─ movable or immovable, ancestral or self-acquired, tangible or intangible”.

The Delhi HC in March this year ruled that parents could evict their abusive children from their property, adding that maintenance tribunals can issue eviction orders.