KOCHI: Alleging widespread financial fraud and cheating, one of the residents of Holy Faith H2O has lashed out against Sany Francis, the apartment builder. Jaison P Thomas, a US-born flat owner, alleged the builder used malicious and deceptive practices and cheated him on multiple occasions.
“We bought the apartment for Rs 68.5 lakh. As Sany said he was selling his flat, I gave him deposit cheques for Rs 15 lakh in his name. And later, he asked me to transfer another Rs 15 lakh to his bank account and the rest of the amount to the bank account of Holy Faith Builders and Developers Pvt Ltd. As we trusted him for the registration process and the documents prepared by Advocate Divya Viswam, it turned out that it was not Sany but his company that was designated as the seller in the sales deed,” said Thomas.
The deed was completed on November 10, 2008, and Thomas took possession of apartment no: 17A1 on February 16, 2012. He alleged Sany had shown only Rs 1.5 lakh as the value of the undivided share of land in the sales deed and over Rs 13.66 lakh as the value of the structure of the apartment.
“Despite transferring my accounted money, Sany committed financial fraud. As a foreign investor, I have no benefit of devaluing my property since it was purchased by all legal tender,” he said.
Going back from his early promise of a free designated parking lot, Sany hasn’t provided a permanent parking space, said Thomas. “It was mentioned that parking will be allowed as first come first serve basis. When I asked for an official document of parking in 2018, he threatened to withhold our permanent parking allotment and forced me to sign a letter that said ‘I have no other claims whatsoever against the builder as on date’,” he said.
The flat owner also clarified that the builder hid the information about CRZ violation. “The builders constantly concealed the details of CRZ violation in all their communications during the sale. They informed us about a pending case in Kerala High Court on Feb 16, 2012, and later they said the verdict was favourable. Prior to this, there was no mention of the delay in obtaining building number, electricity and gas connection. Now, we knew that he was constantly cheating me,” he said.
“It is not just my case. There are multiple charges levelled against him. He has accounted a huge sum as corpus fund from the apartment owners,” he said. The apartment was jointly bought by Thomas and his wife Linu Mariam Thomas. Thomas filed a complaint against the builder before crime branch ADGP, Ernakulam ACP and SHO Maradu police station as well.
Despite repeated attempts, Sany Francis was unavailable for comment.
Kochi city police have registered three cases against the Holy Faith builders based on the complaints of the flat owners and they were later transferred to the Crime Branch.