It was circa 2009 when I had decided to finally take a dip in the ever booming Bangalore’s real estate market. In order to fulfill our dream of buying a home for myself, we started looking for homes in the hot Bangalore real estate market. After about a year of looking for a project where we can realize our future home we zeroed in on Nitesh Hyde Park, by Nitesh Estates on Bannerghatta Road. Nitesh Estates, at the time, was an emerging builder in residential homes having had some success with the commercial space like Ritz-Carlton Bangalore. I felt since they were establishing in the residential market they will do their best with the projects they build to win more and more customers and finally decided to put our trust on them. I had envisioned them to compete with the likes of Brigade, Mantri, Prestige, Purvankara’s of Bangalore which have had good reputation over the years.

Nitesh Hyde Park was advertised as budget homes primarily due to the faltering housing market at that time. We were convinced by the Nitesh Estates sales representatives that they are called budget home primarily because of the low ticket size of the apartments than anything else. There will be no compromise on the quality.  The project was to have 500+ apartments in 1, 2, 3 bedroom configuration and was to be completed in phases with the first phase of blocks A, B, C completed by 2012 that is 3 years from that time. The remaining D, E, F blocks to follow soon.

After a couple of visits by the sales representative and our visits to their sales office in MG Road we finally signed the agreement for our first home. The spirits were high and we were excited having booked the apartment. The project was finally launched on Feb 2010 after all the required approvals were received. Nitesh Estates was overwhelmed with the response and they also decided not to do the model apartment at that time. We later realized this is where the happy part of the story ends.

Since 2010 to now 2016 it has been a totally terrible experience. For starters I am still awaiting the handover of the apartment. The completion dates of the initial A, B, C blocks have been moved innumerable times over the past 3 years and inspite of various assurances from the likes of Nitesh Shetty, Ashwini Kumar – COO the reality is far from rosy.  Though the agreement had all the standard clauses regarding penalty in case of delay but force majeure is something that always comes to the builders rescue. They have not paid a penny towards penalty to anyone though none of us feel the reasons for the delay in this case qualify as force majeure.

There were numerous meetings and escalations at various points during the construction with all management folks but every meeting came with their own set of excuses and new dates. Also the arm twisting tactics of the builders came into play during this period when they threatened to cancel the bookings of most proactive members.

The project finally started handover for Block A around mid of 2015 and having got an opportunity to visit myself personally in July 2015 the block C was no where near completion. I was told that it will be ready in a month’s time but I have been awaiting since then. I was however given the option to register my property since I was personally present there and I wouldn’t be available there after that. I decided to go ahead with the registration and paid up all the outstanding dues including first year maintenance. Here comes another arm twisting tactic by the cunning builder. They came up with the maintenance agreement which was heavily skewed in their favor that I need to sign there and there at the registrar’s office before I can get my apartment registered. At that point I was left with no option but to sign the agreement in order to get the property registered for which I had travelled all the way to Bangalore.

To rub salt on wound over the next couple of months I was made aware that the maintenance (upward of Rs 4.2/psft) of my apartment block is already started. I was like WHATTTT??? I haven’t been handed over the apartment and I am already made to pay the maintenance. Moreover there is no talk about the common areas, club house, swimming pool which generally are the high cost incurring amenities. Questioning the rationale of this again fetched no result as usual.

The most disturbing aspect of the project started coming to light after people started moving in. I am very well averse to the fact that there are some nagging issues in the beginning which gets streamlined over the period of time. But there are some serious issues that needs to be addressed.

Today after almost more than 8-9 months from the initial handover and a lot of perseverance from the residents,  there is no plan for electricity, water and internet. The quality of the project also seemed to be compromised and not upto the mark.

The current owners are trying their level best to get things in order and I feel confident that will persistent fight and pressure on the builder we will be able to make it better.

There is no update on the D, E, F blocks of the project and seems Nitesh Hyde Park is busy selling their premium block O in the project. They are putting a lot more effort in sales and marketing rathar than after sales. I really wish all the prospective buyers good luck for their endeavor.

There are various other ongoing and completed residential projects by Nitesh like Nitesh Caesars Palace, Nitesh Forrest Hill, Nitesh Flushing Meadows and more recently Nitesh Rio, Nitesh British Columbia to name a few. I am not sure what the status of those projects are. Though I don’t know too much about them but I will be highly surprised if those projects were handled any differently.

But for me I was very sure that this is my first and last association with the builder of such shallow  attitude. Also, by this time I am able to come to terms to the reasons of such a long delay in writing this earlier. It seems to be a combination of lack on commitment on my part and  a slight confidence that things will soon start improving.