Expert explains

CHENNAI: We leased our land to Aircel to construct a tower back in 1999, but they ceased operations in 2017. Their tower business is now with Chennai Network Limited, which was eventually merged with GTL Infrastructure. The said operator has not paid rent for the last four years, amounting to `10 lakh. The matter is currently in local court. Now out of the blue, TNEB has sent a notice for non-payment of EB bill along with arrears of close to `3.5 lakh based on their audit. Since the EB meter is under the landlord’s name, can TNEB transfer the arrears to any of the other connections owned by the landlord? How do we proceed? Our lease agreement has a clause which says electricity charges should be borne by the tenant. Should we file another petition and send notice to GTL Infrastructure copying TNEB or is there any way out.

— Hari Babu

Unless there is a separate sub-meter approved by the TNEB, the house owner is liable to pay the consumption charges. When there was a change of tower agency, you should have notified the new agency. Since now you have filed an eviction petition, you can also demand apart from arrears of rent the other dues payable by the tenant as per the terms of agreement. File an amendment petition for inclusion of those arrears in the existing RCOP.

What is the procedure to write a will properly so that there is no confusion about division of property among my children after my demise.

— Janakiraman

Since your name suggests that you may belong to Hindu religion, you need not leave any will for sharing the property among your children.Under the Hindu Succession Act, all the children (sons and daughters) get the same share from their father’s property. Only if you want to exclude any one of the siblings from the line of succession, you will have to write a will which will have to be registered. You can write a will on your own specifically mentioning the shares which each one may get from the property and get it registered with the nearest sub-registrar office where the property is located. If the properties are in several places, you can go to any one of the registrar offices where the property is located. When you go for registration, you need two witnesses (who may not be beneficiary under the will) and you should sign first.Afterwards, the other two witnesses will sign. You may easily get a model will from any of your lawyer contacts or from the document writers available in the registrar’s office.

I had purchased a mobile Internet connection dongle from a telecommunications company eight years ago. Since the service was very poor, even after repeated complaints the company did not do anything. So I also did not pay the bills. Subsequently I got transferred to another city and could not go back to pay the bill or surrender the dongle. I fear that the company might some day send a huge bill for using the service for all these years. What should I do? Can the company claim the bill amount from me after delay of these many years?

— Anonymous

You should have notified your old service provider. At least it is not too late now to notify them about your discontinuance of their services. As and when they claim arrears, you can use this document.

Justice K Chandru is a former judge of the Madras High Court

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