What Does a Society or RWA Maintain? Shared vs Private in Delhi NCR

The general line: what is usually shared, what is usually yours

The pattern in most Delhi NCR apartment buildings is this: the society or RWA looks after what serves more than one flat, and the owner looks after what serves only their own. That single sentence resolves most cases before you look anything up.

Usually shared, looked after by the society or RWA:

• The main structure — the frame, slabs, columns and load-bearing elements.
• The terrace and the roof, including its waterproofing, unless a terrace has been given exclusively to one flat.
• External walls and the outside face of the building, including exterior painting and plaster.
• Common drainage and water stacks — the vertical pipes running through the building, and the shafts they sit in.
• The underground sump and overhead tanks, the pumps that move water between them, and the cleaning of both.
• Lifts, the lobby, staircases, corridors, common lighting, the gate and any common power backup.
• The bore, the connection to the municipal supply, and tanker arrangements where the building uses them.

Usually yours, inside the flat:

• Everything from the point the supply enters your flat — your taps, your internal pipework, your fittings, your geyser.
• Your internal wiring, sockets, switches and your distribution board.
• Internal walls, ceilings and their paint, doors, windows and their frames.
• Your bathrooms, kitchen, flooring and all appliances.
• Your balcony surface and drain, in most buildings, though the parapet and the exterior face are usually not.

The complicated cases sit exactly where the two meet, and that is the rest of this page.

Leaks and stacks: the hardest case, and how to find the source

Water travels, and it never announces where it came from. That is why leaks are the single most disputed category in every building. The practical answer is not to argue about responsibility first — it is to establish the source first, because the source settles the question.

• A ceiling stain directly under someone else’s bathroom is usually coming from that flat’s plumbing or waterproofing, not from the building and not from you. This needs a conversation with the flat above, ideally with the society present rather than as a private argument between neighbours.
• Damp along a shaft wall, or a stain that runs vertically through several floors, points at the common stack. If neighbours above and below report the same thing, that is close to conclusive, and it is a society matter.
• Damp on an external wall that worsens in the monsoon is usually failed exterior plaster or waterproofing, which is normally the building’s side. Repainting the inside will not hold. Our wall seepage and waterproofing guide explains how a professional traces damp to its source.
• A top-floor ceiling stain is nearly always the terrace above, which is usually shared. Our terrace waterproofing guide covers what a proper treatment involves and why it has to be done in the dry pre-monsoon window.
• A leak under your own basin, at your own tap or from your own geyser is yours, however inconvenient the answer.

How to find out without guessing: have a plumber trace it, and ask the neighbours above, below and beside you whether they have the same problem. That one round of questions resolves a surprising number of cases in a morning, and it costs nothing. If several flats share the symptom, you have a building issue and a much stronger case for raising it collectively.

Tanks, lifts, external painting and common power

These are the items where a resident’s real question is less “whose job is it” and more “how do I get it actually done”.

• Water tanks and the sump. Cleaning the shared overhead tanks and the underground sump is normally the society’s job, and how often it happens varies enormously from building to building. Ask for the last cleaning date, not a reassurance. If your flat has its own separate tank, that one is yours. Our water tank cleaning guide covers what a proper clean includes, and our water supply and tank tips cover the checks a resident can make.
• Pumps and supply timings. The pump that lifts water from sump to overhead tank is shared. Weak pressure on upper floors during peak hours is usually a building-level issue, not a fault in your taps — worth establishing before you pay anyone to look at your plumbing.
• Lifts. Shared, and normally under an annual maintenance arrangement. Repeated breakdowns are a matter to raise with the society office in writing rather than with the technician on the day.
• Exterior painting and external plaster. Shared, and usually done on a multi-year cycle. If your internal damp is being caused by failed exterior plaster, the cycle matters to you directly, and it is worth asking when the next one is planned.
• Common power backup. What it covers — lifts and common areas only, or a limited load into each flat — varies by building and is worth knowing precisely. Anything inside your flat, including your own inverter, is yours.
• Pest control in common areas. Drains, shafts, basements and the garden are usually the society’s. Inside your flat is yours, and a treatment inside a single flat rarely holds if the shared drains and shafts are untreated, which is why block-level treatment works better.

How to find out where the line falls in your building

General patterns are useful for reasoning. They are not what governs. Your building runs on its own documents and its own practice, so spend one hour finding out what those actually say.

• Ask the society or RWA office for the maintenance rules in writing. Most have a document or a set of circulars covering what is maintained centrally, what residents handle, and how a complaint is raised. Ask for the current version.
• Ask what the maintenance charge covers. This is the most direct way to learn what the society considers its own responsibility, because it is what the money is being collected for.
• Ask how a complaint is logged and what happens next. A written register, an app, a WhatsApp group, a form at the office. Use whatever channel leaves a record, and note the date and reference.
• If you are a tenant, add one more layer. Between you and the owner there is a separate split, and it is usually set out in your agreement. A society repair, an owner repair and a tenant repair are three different things. Our guide on who pays for repairs, tenant or landlord covers that second line.
• If you are buying, ask before you buy. When the terrace was last treated, how often tanks are cleaned, whether a large shared work is planned and how it is funded. Our resale flat condition survey includes these in the walk-round.

How to raise a shared repair so it actually gets done

Once you are reasonably sure the source is on the shared side, how you raise it decides how long it takes. A few practical habits work far better than persistence alone.

• Put it in writing, through the official channel, and keep the reference. A message in a corridor is not a complaint. A dated written complaint is, and it is what any follow-up rests on.
• Lead with evidence. Photographs of the damp with dates, a note of when it started and how it changes with rain, and the plumber’s view on where the water is coming from. A complaint with evidence is acted on faster than a complaint with an opinion.
• Find the other affected flats. A shared-stack or terrace problem is almost never one flat’s alone. Three residents reporting one issue moves faster than one resident reporting it three times.
• Ask for a specific next step and a date, not a resolution. “Can someone inspect the shaft this week?” is answerable. “Please fix the seepage” is not.
• Protect your flat in the meantime, but do not do the shared repair yourself. Sealing your side of a shaft opening or covering an affected area is sensible. Paying privately for work on shared property, without agreeing it with the society first in writing, can leave you without either the fix or any recourse.
• Time it to the season. Terrace and external work has to be done in dry weather, so a complaint raised in April is far more likely to be actioned before the rains than the same complaint in July. Our monsoon home maintenance checklist lists what a building should have done pre-monsoon, which is a useful list to send with a complaint.

For everything genuinely on your side of the line, our guide on who to call for home repairs helps you pick the right trade first time, and on XpertWorker you can request free quotes from independent, ID-verified professionals and compare them — we do not set anyone’s price, we never charge you, and you deal and pay the professional directly.