What are bye laws of maintenance for housing society with row houses and towers?

According to my knowledge goes, there is no hard and fast rules to follow the bye laws as mentioned in internet or other society papers. Bye laws has to be created by the new housing society members on their first meeting and those rules need to be followed by the owners of the houses and apartment residents As regards to bye laws for the row houses, they are independent houses and each house is the owner of themselves and hence may not like to form the society to maintain. However in the interest of having created the gated community for the row houses, elections for every two year term may be created and rules regarding maintenance, charging of monthly fees, how many employees to be appointed to look after cleansing, keeping the area clean and watering the plants outside each homes.

As regards to towers are concerned, there must association created by the builder and he should also be part of maintaining the building and he must put some premium amount at the start of the association so that any pressing problems can be addressed and attended immediately.

The row houses are the separate houses and each house is owned by the different members. These houses would need cleaning, proper availability of water supply, cleaning of bath - rooms, to ensure that flushing of the cistern are in order in the toilet, toilet cleaning, civil maintenance, roof leakage etc form the basic parts to be monitored closely so that these row houses are well maintained in respect of basic facilities for such houses.
Though the members are the independent owners of their row houses, they would have to form a society consisting of members of each row and the members elected after the voting formalities would take up different responsibilities for smooth maintenance of these row houses.
From the residents of such houses, secretary, treasurer, auditors and other responsible officials would be chosen to look after the various affairs for better up keep and cleaning of the row houses.The owner would also take part in all such affairs since he would remain actively involved for undertaking various jobs required to keep the area in cleaned condition and there is provision of electricity, park, parking areas for the cars of the residing members and would also provide space for cars visiting the houses of the members.
Elected members would raise funds for the accomplishments of the following jobs -
1) Emergency Fund - This fund will be developed to take care of any eventuality such as demolishing of any part of row house and its subsequent repair.
2) Maintenance Fund - This will include the expenses required for the payments of security guards, plumbers, electricians, cost arising due to electrical and mechanical maintenance undertaken in the row houses.
3) Common Room and Park related funds - Common Room will be the area where the members and their families may assemble together to enjoy reading of Newspapers, Magazines and there will be also a library having different books such as novels, story- books or any other informative books to be issued to the different members. Addition of books in the library would involve additional cost.
4) Collection of funds for visiting doctors and health staff - This fund would be utilised for the medical checkup of the members and their families.
5) There will be monthly meeting of the members to discuss any important issue relating to improvement of the existing facility, if they feel.
6) There will be an annual general meeting where the different agendas will be discussed relating to better infrastructure.

Each State is having some model bye-laws for various housing societies. Based on that every society can make its own bye-laws and can be followed. Once the society and governing body for the society are made, the rules can be framed based on the bye-laws of that state and the same may be followed.
The most detailed guidelines on maintenance charges are set forth by the state of Maharashtra, All other states are following more or less similar rules.
The maintenance charges include
1. Service Charges: It includes electricity for common areas, watchmen, lift operators, cleaning crew, and gardeners. Service charges are borne equally by all members. Repairs and maintenance will also come under this.
2. Parking Charges: Only for people who have vehicles and the amount may vary from two-wheelers to four-wheelers.
3. Water Charges: Common for all. Based on the size and number of connections
4. Non-Occupying Charges; Some times some house may be vacant. Even then they have to pay some minimum amount as fixed by the society. The owner has to pay that.
5. Emergency charges: Sometimes unforeseen expenses may come and that is to be equally born by all the house owners.
To meet all the expenditure as the amount will be decided. In your society there may be some people who are managing the issues, they should conduct a general body meeting and consider various issues and decide the charges. In that meeting, only the amount for tower houses and the amount for row houses will be decided and once it is decided, one has to abide by this. Accounts are to be maintained and to get them passed in the body meeting and the accounts should be open to all the members.
The charges can be decided in any one of the following methods.
1. Based on the area of the house. A bigger house will pay more and small houses will pay less.
2. Equal Fee. Irrespective of size and type of accommodation, all the owners will pay equal charges,
3. Hybrid fee. This depends on some charges mentioned above may be common to all and some may vary. So the governing committee can decide the amount based on the expenses. You can follow this system. A hybrid method is suggested for a fair and unbiased distribution of maintenance charges.
As a member of society, you can propose this method in one meeting and can be discussed. Even voting can also happen and the majority vote will decide on the methodology.

When a society has a mixed lot of houses like row houses and towers containing flats then this type of problem comes as how to decide the quantum of maintenance charges. Generally the methodology is based on the area of the house and the common facilities. Let us consider a row house where the person would have some land in front and some kitchen garden or space in the sides. The row house would be open to the lanes on one side or sometimes both the sides. Now cleaning of these lanes is done by the society and some expenditure would come for that as well as to maintain the electric lights and other things in those lanes adjacent to the row houses. These things would not be there in the flats but they would have other charges like lift charges and garbage lifting charges etc. So some charges are there in the row houses which might not be necessarily present in the flats. Then, there are other facilities like park or swimming pool or playing area or table tennis etc and for those activities all have to pay.

Based on all this the housing society would reach to a simple formula of charging per square ft for all the houses in the society whether row houses or towers. The concept of size is important as if the society gets the painting and cleaning of the premises from the outside then the bigger houses would entail more expenditure than the small houses. A 3 BHK house and a 1 BHK house would have different requirement of paints etc on its outside.

In your housing society if they are charging just as per the per unit of house and not as per the area then it would be a problem as a small house owner would not like to give a large amount in the name of maintenance. The logic stands that a person who has bought a big house should also be able to pay a bigger maintenance. As regards the tower and the row house the difference would come only due to the area and nothing else. It is not practical to calculate the maintenance separately for different types of houses in the society as there has to some basic premises on which every one has to contribute a minimum amount of the maintenance.