Recovering maintenance arrears in Karnataka
KAOA Section 19 makes unpaid dues a charge on the apartment, ahead of other charges. How to use it, and the two mistakes that destroy your own case.
Written by the Societly team
Last verified 28 July 2026 · 3 sources
Almost every Bengaluru association has two or three apartments carrying arrears that have quietly grown past a lakh. The usual response — a strongly worded notice, then cutting off amenities, then nothing — is both the least effective and the most legally exposed sequence available.
The Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act gives associations a considerably stronger tool, and most committees have never heard of it.
Section 19: the charge on the apartment
Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act, 1972, Section 19:
"All sums assessed by the Association of Apartment owners but unpaid for the share of common expenses chargeable to any apartment shall constitute a charge on such apartment prior to all other charges..."
Read that carefully, because it is unusually strong:
- Unpaid common expenses are not merely a debt owed by a person. They attach as
a charge on the apartment itself.
- That charge ranks prior to all other charges on the apartment.
The practical consequence is that an owner who has let arrears accumulate has an encumbrance sitting on the property. That becomes very real at the point of sale or mortgage — which, in most cases, is where the money actually comes from.
A summary for committees, not legal advice. How the charge is asserted, recorded and enforced in a given case needs a Karnataka advocate. Get advice before you rely on this against a specific owner.
What this changes about your approach
It moves the centre of gravity from persuading a person to documenting an encumbrance. Two things follow:
The assessment has to be sound. Section 19 protects "sums assessed by the Association". That means the levy must be properly made — apportioned in accordance with Section 10 and your Declaration, approved through the process in your bye-laws, and correctly billed. A shaky assessment is a shaky charge. This is the single strongest practical reason to get your apportionment basis right.
The record has to be complete. Every bill, every receipt, every reminder, every general body resolution setting the rate. If you cannot evidence what was assessed and when, you are asserting a charge you cannot prove.
An escalation sequence that holds up
1. Get the ledger right. Before any notice, reconcile that apartment's account completely: bills raised, payments received and correctly applied, interest computed per the bye-laws, credits and waivers. A notice claiming a figure you later revise hands the defaulter their best argument.
2. Statement of account, not a demand. Send the full itemised account first. A surprising number of "defaulters" are disputes about two years of misapplied receipts, and this resolves them without cost.
3. Reminder with the interest position stated. Interest must be at the rate your bye-laws provide, applied uniformly. Selective waivers are how an association loses the ability to charge interest at all.
4. Committee resolution. Record a resolution authorising formal steps against the specific apartment. This matters: it demonstrates the association acted collectively rather than a secretary acting personally.
5. Advocate's notice referencing Section 19 and the charge on the apartment. For most owners this is the step that produces payment, because it is the first one that touches the asset rather than the person.
6. Proceed as advised. Recovery proceedings, and — on advice — steps to ensure the charge is visible to anyone dealing with the apartment.
The two things that destroy your own case
Cutting off essential services. Committees stop water, disconnect electricity, block lift access. It feels proportionate and it is the most common own-goal in Indian apartment management. Courts have consistently taken a dim view of associations cutting off essential services as a recovery mechanism, and a defaulter who was denied water has just acquired a grievance that will overshadow their arrears entirely. You will find yourself defending your conduct instead of pursuing your money.
Restricting discretionary amenities — the clubhouse, the pool, a second parking slot — is a different question and is more commonly regarded as defensible, particularly where the bye-laws provide for it. Get advice on where your bye-laws place that line, and put the policy to the general body rather than inventing it per defaulter.
Selective enforcement. The moment one owner is pursued and another with similar arrears is not — because they are on the committee, or a friend, or difficult — the association's position weakens across the board. Set a written policy with thresholds and timelines, get it approved by the general body, and apply it without exception. "We applied our published policy" is a complete answer. "We decided this one was worse" is not.
Publishing defaulters: be careful
Displaying a list of defaulting flat numbers on the notice board is common practice and is genuinely effective. It also carries risk — reputational harm claims, and increasingly data-protection considerations under India's Digital Personal Data Protection framework.
If your association does it, the safer version: publish only what the bye-laws authorise, restrict it to apartment numbers rather than owner names, keep it to members rather than public-facing display, and take advice first. The effectiveness comes from members seeing that arrears are visible at all, not from naming individuals.
Prevention beats recovery
Most arrears are not refusals. They are drift — a bill nobody saw, a payment method that requires effort, no reminder until it is three months old.
- Bill on a fixed date every month, without exception.
- Make paying trivially easy. UPI, instant receipt. Friction is the main
cause of ageing arrears in societies that have no real defaulters.
- Automate reminders at 7, 15 and 30 days so nobody has to decide to chase.
- Age your arrears rather than reporting one number — a society with ₹8 lakh
outstanding split across 40 flats at 20 days has a completely different problem from one with ₹8 lakh across two flats at 400 days. See what your accounts should show.
- Escalate on a schedule, not on mood.
An association that does these five things typically finds its arrears problem shrinks to the genuine hard cases, which is exactly the number Section 19 is worth deploying against.
The short version
- KAOA Section 19 makes unpaid common expenses a charge on the apartment,
ranking ahead of other charges. It is your strongest tool.
- It only protects sums properly assessed — so the apportionment and the
approval process have to be right.
- Escalate through a documented sequence; get an advocate's notice referencing
Section 19 before proceedings.
- Do not cut off essential services, and never enforce selectively.
- Most arrears are friction, not refusal. Fix the friction first.
Sources
Every statutory claim above was checked against the text of the Act itself, not against secondary commentary.
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