Buying a flat with unpaid dues attached — who actually pays?
Unpaid maintenance follows the apartment, not the seller. But the law gives a buyer one specific protection, and most people treat it as a formality.
Written by the Societly team
Last verified 28 September 2026 · 3 sources
A flat changes hands. Two months later the new owner gets a bill for arrears that accrued long before they had ever seen the building, and discovers the seller has stopped answering the phone.
Most people treat this as a dispute about fairness. It isn't. In apartment law the answer is usually settled before anyone argues, and it rests on one document that buyers routinely ask for casually and committees routinely issue casually.
The dues attach to the apartment, not the person
The starting point is that unpaid common expenses are not an ordinary personal debt. They are a charge on the flat itself.
Delhi's Apartment Ownership Act puts it plainly at section 21: sums assessed but unpaid "shall constitute a charge on such apartment prior to all other charges except only" the charge for government and municipal taxes and sums unpaid on a first mortgage. Karnataka does the same thing through KAOA section 19, and Tamil Nadu through section 19 of its 2022 Act.
That is why chasing the seller is the wrong mental model. The debt did not walk out of the building with them.
The buyer is jointly liable — and this surprises people
Several state Acts go a step further and make the purchaser directly liable alongside the seller.
Delhi's section 23(1) makes a purchaser jointly and severally liable with the seller for unpaid assessments up to the time of sale. Tamil Nadu's 2022 Act says the same at section 22: on a sale or transfer, "the purchaser or the transferee… shall be jointly and severally liable with the vendor or the transferor for all unpaid assessments against the latter towards his share of the common expenses upto the time of sale or transfer" — while preserving the buyer's right to recover from the seller whatever they end up paying.
Joint and several liability means the association can pursue the buyer for the whole amount. Not a share of it, and not only after exhausting the seller.
The protection almost everyone treats as a formality
Here is the part worth knowing before you sign anything.
Both Acts give the purchaser a specific statutory shield, and it is a document. Delhi's section 23(2) entitles the buyer to "a statement from the Board or Manager setting forth the amount of the unpaid assessment," and provides that the buyer is not liable beyond the amount that statement sets out. Tamil Nadu's section 22 carries the same protection, adding that the apartment itself is not subject to a charge for unpaid common expenses "in excess of the amount setforth in such statement."
Read that carefully, because it changes what the document is for. The "no-dues certificate" everybody asks for at the end of a flat sale is not a courtesy the society extends. Where these provisions apply, it is the instrument that caps the buyer's exposure at the figure written on it.
Which cuts both ways:
- For a buyer: get it in writing, from the association, before completion, with a number on it — not a verbal "nothing pending". An understated figure is the association's problem, not yours. A missing statement is entirely yours.
- For a committee: the statement you issue is a cap on what your society can later recover from that apartment. Issuing one without actually checking the ledger writes off the difference. This is a finance task, not an administrative one.
Which Act governs your building, and how these provisions apply to a specific sale, are questions for an advocate practising property law in your state. This explains the structure; it is not advice on your transaction.
What each side should actually do
If you are buying:
- Ask the association directly — not the seller, and not the broker — for a written statement of dues outstanding against that apartment.
- Make sure it carries a date and a figure, and that it covers the whole apartment rather than one billing head.
- Check whether a special levy has been approved but not yet billed. A special levy resolved but uncollected is a liability heading toward you that may not show as arrears yet.
- Keep it with the sale papers. It is the document that limits you.
If you sit on the committee:
- Treat a dues statement as a reconciliation, not a form. Run it against the member ledger before signing.
- Include approved-but-unbilled levies, or say explicitly that the figure excludes them.
- Minute who is authorised to issue these. An informally issued statement still binds the society.
- Keep a copy against the apartment's record — the next dispute will be about what you said, and when.
The short version
- Unpaid dues are a charge on the apartment, not a personal debt that leaves with the seller — Delhi s.21, KAOA s.19, Tamil Nadu s.19.
- Several Acts make the buyer jointly and severally liable with the seller for arrears up to the sale: Delhi s.23(1), Tamil Nadu s.22. The association can pursue the buyer for the whole amount.
- The buyer's protection is a written statement from the association, and it caps liability at the figure stated — Delhi s.23(2), Tamil Nadu s.22.
- So the no-dues certificate is not a formality. For a buyer it is the ceiling on their exposure; for a committee it is a waiver of anything they failed to include.
- Check for approved-but-unbilled special levies — they may not appear as arrears yet.
Sources
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