I run a retail shop in a mall and the mall is not running successfully. The maintenance is very poor and even after 2 years of opening there are very few shops in it. The issue lies mainly with the poor management and they also agree they have made mistakes. There are couple of doubts I have:
1. The mall is currently running under Electricity but they're charging us Diesel @ 14.5 per unit. Is that legal?
2. They're charging us for maintenance which includes chiller, security, cleaning and overall common area maintenance. There are very few securities (none inside the mall), cleaning is pathetic (hardly any bathroom is usable), chiller water also they dont give most times.
Under such circumstances we told them we cannot pay maintenance unless and until the issues are sorted out and we have to get a revised bill on electricity since the generator is not working. Since we started in 2010 we've been paying the bills without defaulting. We've not paid Sept and Oct 2012 bills and the mall people are threatening us that they'll take steps to make sure we pay. They have earlier cut off electricity and tried to close down couple of shops for non-payment for few months.
We have a lease deed with an owner (not the mall) and currently we dont have any maintenance agreement with the mall.
Can they cut our electricity? If they do what legal action can we take.
Thanks a lot
CAclubindia
