Dear Friends, the following mail, I have received from my friend, most of the items are true based on my experience with Jains. They have taken 5 years maintenance amount on behalf of Promogs by Feb-2009, now Promogs sends the circular saying that they have completed 3.5 years of maintenance. My personal request is “DO NOT BUY FROM JAINS”.
Dear Reader,
This is a slightly lengthy document. The length of the document is, in fact, an indication of the severity of the issue being discussed. If you are a potential flat buyer anywhere in India, I request you to go through this document in full and forward to all your friends as well. If you are not a potential flat buyer, my request to you is to forward this to as many people you know as possible, because someone will definitely benefit from this. I am confident that this mail will be more useful than the many spams we keep forwarding.
There are definitely hundreds, probably thousands, of reasons why you should not buy a Jains Flat. I have just listed down the "TOP20" of them, and by no means this is a complete list. If you happen to have had any dealing with Jains, I am sure, you would be able to add at least 20 more from the top of your memory.
1. Jain Housing is a thoroughly Unprofessional, Unethical, Deceptive, Dishonest, Unreliable, Crooked and Non-trustworthy Organisation.
2. If you deal with Jain Housing, you will lose a few years of your lifespan by running around Jains and receiving the shocks they give from time to time.
3. Jains, almost never, will hand over the house on time. And you will not know when you will get your house.
4. The Jain Housing construction agreement is probably the most one sided agreement in India. Any consulting lawyer will tell you this if you show him the agreement. Once you sign the document, you are literally slaves to Jains (less handcuffs). All the points in the agreement are in Jain’s favour. The clause on penalty for late handover of the flat is eyewash. Jains has no history of paying any of its customers for late handover. They also have a cost escalation clause. Jains will keep on threatening you with this clause till you die. If you happen to notice this clause before signing the agreement (remember, you already have paid 40% before you even see this!!!), the officer will say that it is ‘just there as a formality’ but Jains has never used it. Please do not believe him / her for God’s sake.
5. Jains construction quality is among the worst in the industry. You can verify this by a simple check. Just look at the mortar they use. There are 3 consistencies in mortar – the dry one, the semi wet one (which is given to the mason by the helper), the wet one (obtained by mixing more water to the semi wet mortar). The wet mortar will easily flow and will contain enough water to make the mortar flow. Good constructions will use wet mortar for building. This will give very good adhesion and strength to the building. But it is a time consuming exercise as the mason has to make sure that the mortar does not flow down from top of the bricks, by holding it for some time. Instead, what builders like Jains do is to put the semi dry mortar, place the bricks on it and pour water from top to make it wet. This water will take all the cement in the mortar and what remains is the sand alone!!! A strong person can easily break the walls before it is plastered.
Also, they never "cure" the walls and the plastering. The walls and the plastering have to be cured with water for 3 days for them to gain strength. Jains NEVER does it. All Jains flat owners are at great risk even if there is a mild tremor. The walls will collapse like a pack of cards. Walls made with wet mortar and cured well will NEVER give up even during severe earth quacks and they stand like rocks. Even during demolition, such walls will fall down as a single piece and it will be impossible to separate out the bricks alone. But if you push down a "Jains" wall, all the bricks would peel off from the mortar like a banana, which is an indication of a bad quality construction.
6. They will showcase heaven before you book the flat; the executives will be very friendly, they will call you twice a day, they will not have any meetings with the AGMs and MDs and so they will have all the time in the world to talk to you. Once you book and pay the advance, they turn the coin around and you will only see the ugly face from then onwards. Your phone bill alone will run into 25000-30000 by the time your flat is ready, in addition to a reduction of a good 5 years of your lifespan.
7. The payment schedule is such that you would have paid 95% when only 35% of the work is over (ie the 4th floor concrete slab). It is estimated that the concrete structure costs only 35% of the overall construction cost. So Jains will do the concrete structure very fast and collect 95% of the money from you. Then they will lie and snore on your money. Remember – the 35% is on the cost not on the retail price of the flat. Eg if you bought a flat for a retail price of Rs 100, you will pay Rs 95 when the concrete structure is complete. But Jains would have spent only 35% of overall construction cost (and not 35% of the retail price you pay) which could be say Rs 60. So 35% of Rs 60 is only Rs 21.
8. You will have to undergo the pain of dealing with a different engineer every 3-4 months. You will be frustrated to explain what all you need (changes, if any); once you do this the engineer will change. The writer of this document is currently dealing with the 8th engineer in the last 33 months.
9. The agreement will mention that the standard brands (for wiring, sanitary fittings, plumbing fittings, tiles etc) or their equivalent will be used. Almost all the time only ‘equivalent’ brands are used. I have not noticed even for a single item where the brand mentioned in the agreement has been used.
10. Most of the flats will be used as open toilets by the workers there. It will be so disheartening for you to even see such things (urine, faeces, waste food etc.) inside your flat. I have seen the workers doing this and without actually cleaning, putting sand on it and tiling on it. So you know what treasure you will find if you dig in your flat!!!
11. In many unfinished houses, the workers live for months together. So it is not a brand new house you get. They do all kind of things and make the flat filthy. (They usually live in one flat and make the adjacent one as their toilet). Many of the customers would have noticed this when they were visiting the site.
12. Once the superstructure is ready, Jains will start sending letters to all the customers saying that their flat is ready for occupation and that they should inspect the house. If you eagerly go there to inspect, you will be disappointed to say the least. There will be no power connection and no water connection to the flat. Even other items like painting, kitchen etc would not be complete and Jains would call the flat as ‘ready for occupation’. It is actually very funny!!!
13. Even if you have paid all the instalments on time, in the final letter, they will mention an amount as "late payment charges". You will get a heart attack by seeing this. Actually, you would have paid all the instalments on time and Jains would have delayed the project by a few years, but they will claim late payment charges from you!!! They do this because, when they waive this off during final settlement, you will have a relief and feel happy and not think of asking for any compensation for their delay. But the fact is that it should not have been there in the first place!!!
14. False reporting of the status of the project will happen at ALL levels in Jains organisation. They will say that Lifts are working, Permanent EB connection is available, Driveways are ready etc. If you visit the flat you will understand that you have been duped by the pure, unadulterated, agmark LIES of Jains.
15. Extra works – Jains will give a deadline for finalising your extra works (if you need some) which will be usually 2-3 year ahead of the handover date. They agree for most of the things you want, but will give various reasons and not do many things. You can simply not do anything about it. They will say reasons like this – Sir, if I do this for you others also will see this and ask for it. If you argue that the deadline for requesting extra works is over anyway, then they will say some other reason, but will never do the job. And if you want to change the tiles or something else of your choice, you will be robbed in the broad daylight. For eg if you want the tile colour to be changed, they will charge about Rs 100 per sq ft for the tile you wanted but discount only Rs 25 for the standard tiles Jains was to use !!! (so do we believe Jains when they say that they will use "top" quality vitrified tiles, or do we assume that the tiles Jains was planning to use cost only Rs 25 per sq ft?). Atrocious. All other rates are similar only.
16. No surface will be flat, no line will be straight and no corner will be square in any of the rooms, lobby, stairs, windows, doors, parking and , driveways in Jains flats. The driveway in our complex is worse than a corporation road.
17. Jains will insist on Maintenance for 1 or 2 years at a "nominal" cost (you will understand a different meaning of "nominal" if you look at the rates they quote), through their sister company called Promogs. Promogs will start the maintenance much ahead of handing over the flats and they will manage the site with 5-6 securities in each shift, whereas the monthly fees they collect are to the tune of Rs 8-9 lakhs. This is nothing but swindling of money.
18. Lofts and Kitchen platforms: In Jains philosophy, whichever area is invisible when you normally walk around your house (no bending, stretching or peeping pls.) is not to be finished. Just climb on a stool and look at the lofts; of bend down and look below kitchen platform – you will realise the inherent quality of Jains. The height between the roof and the loft or the kitchen platform and the floor will vary anywhere between 3-4 inches from place to place within the same loft or kitchen. This means that within a space of 2 ft, you will have a variance of 3-4 inches. What a pathetic masonry work!!!
19. When you buy a Jains House you will need to replace almost all your locks immediately. Else, you will pay a heavy price and then you will change them. Because these locks are so poor in quality that they will get locked automatically, and they would not open whatever you may do. You will need to break the lock to open the door. Sometimes you will get locked in the bathrooms, sometimes in bedrooms. Imagine if a housewife, when the cooking is on, goes to the toilet and gets locked inside and no one else is present in the house. With not even a mobile phone at hand to contact others, and with the gas stove on in the kitchen, it is a spine chilling experience which many of us have experienced in our complex.
20. Most of the Jains complexes will promise a “Sewage Treatment plant” if there is no drainage connection available in that area. The plant almost never treats the sewage and the complex will be in great trouble handling various issues arising out of this including the social, legal, health issues. Jains and the equipment supplier will turn a blind eye on this and will provide no support. It will be left to the association to handle the situation.