BENGALURU, 10 MAR

For the past three years, apartment owners in Silicon Valley have been waiting for full ownership rights to the properties they own.

Reason? The delay in implementing the Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act, promised by political leaders across parties, ahead of the 2033 Karnataka elections. This was a promise that made it to party manifestos too.

Yet, two years later, in 2025, there has been no concrete progress.

 Which means that while you may own an apartment worth lakhs or crores in a well-equipped gated community with top-notch facilities, and you pay maintenance fees on time, you don't have ownership rights to the common areas or the land the building is built on.

The reason for this is the delay in transferring ownership of the common areas and land from the builder or promoter to the flat owners, along with the absence of a registered owners' association.

Shwetha R, a chip design engineer and resident of a Whitefield apartment, voiced her frustration:"We are paying property tax for land that legally doesn’t belong to us. If the landowner hasn’t transferred the property rights to our association, what are we paying taxes for? Karnataka has become a land of lawlessness with no legal framework for residential property owners."

This contradicts existing laws such as:

Real Estate Regulatory Authority Act Section 11 & 17-after 30 flats are occupied, the builder is legally obligated to transfer the undivided proportionate title of the land to the association of flat owners within three months of receiving the occupancy certificate.

Karnataka Ownership Flats Act, 1972 (KOFA): Mandates that promoters transfer property titles and execute necessary sale documents from the builder/ promoter to flat owners.

Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act, 1972 (KAOA): Grants each apartment owner exclusive rights to their unit while jointly owning common areas of the building.

Despite these laws, many developers retain control over common spaces, leaving apartment owners without full legal ownership of their property.

Dhananjaya Padmanabhachar, Convenor of KHBF and flat owner, stated:

"We have been pursuing this issue relentlessly. We even sent a draft act, modeled after the Odisha Apartment (Ownership and Management) Act, 2023, to the government and filed a writ petition in the Karnataka High Court in January 2025. But despite our efforts, there has been no substantial outcome."

In February 2024, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar announced in the state assembly that a new Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act would be introduced to protect apartment buyers and owners.

Fourteen months later, on March 8,2025 the additional chief secretary Uma Shankar told the media that, act “will come into force by the end of this year.”

Padmanabhachar responded to the continued delay:

"Action must be time bound. The last official communication we received was a letter from the Housing Department dated September 30, 2024, stating that the Karnataka government was in the final stages of drafting a new apartment ownership act. But we are still waiting for concrete action."

Even the Karnataka High Court took note of the inaction, issuing an order on January 27, 2025, directing the state government’s advocate to record the government's response and submit a report.

Abdul Aleem, resident of HM Tanbourine & President of the Changemakers of Kanakapura Road Association, highlighted an ongoing violation: 'At HM Tambourine Apartment, the builder has retained a portion of undivided share (UDS) land, even though the entire portion has already been used in the Floor Area Ratio (FAR). Now, they are constructing 120 more flats, blatantly violating building bylaws."

Karnataka also falls behind Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Telangana and Odisha, in implementing the act to safeguard home buyers/owners.