Regretting the biggest mistake of my life.

Review On Vakil Housing, Bangalore

This is review is quite long. If you don’t have the time to read it, I have one piece of advice. Never buy any property in Vakil Whispering Woods without speaking to multiple people who already reside there. They will tell you all the problems they have been facing for the past few years and this might just change your mind and save your money. Read on to know more.

When I first decided to visit this project, they arranged a pickup and drop from my home to their gated community called Whispering Woods to show me flats in an apartment called Vakil Magnolia. This gated community has 6 apartments inside. Vakil Magnolia is the latest project which completed in 2018. At the time of my visit, the apartment was nearing completion. I will list each issue that this apartment is having.

1. WATER - The biggest issue that all of us are facing in this apartment – LACK OF WATER. Yes, that’s right, no shortage of water but a complete lack of water. Before I purchased my apartment here, I visited this project 4 times. Living in Bengaluru for a little over 20 years and multiple locations in the city, I know that water shortage is a big issue here especially if you have only one source that is a borewell. This is one of the reasons why all of the 4 times during my visit, I asked the salesperson very clearly about the water supply in the apartment. She conveniently told me that there are 2 borewells in the apartment and 6 borewells in the other parts of the project and that there would never be any shortage of water. I asked her the same thing all 4 times I visited because I was not completely convinced. However, since she said the same story about there being 2+ 6 borewells, I was inclined to take her word on the matter. Fast forward to a few months later when we all got the Occupation Certificate and decided to move in. Although I did not, many of my fellow owners moved into their respective flats. It was only after they moved in, they realized that both the borewells within the premises of the apartment were not functioning. One was completely dead and the other was bone dry. This is when we realized that Vakil cheated us completely by not even providing the most basic amenity. When we all reached out to them, they provided a temporary solution by pumping in water from another apartment quite some distance away. To add to it they even asked us to pay for the pumping charges. Since this was just an interim solution, we asked them for a permanent one which they said they would work on and let us know. It has been more than 2 years now, since then and we have not seen any progress from Vakil in providing us with a permanent solution. Instead, they make lame excuses like they cannot bring in the borewell truck because it would damage the compound wall. The fact that Vakil sold all 100 flats by telling us that there is an ample amount of water should tell you how big a cheat both the Vakil brothers and their salespeople are. Also, not attending to the issue after being told several times for 2 years and ignoring it, will tell you how irresponsible and money-minded all the people who work in Vakil are. Their only goal is to cheat you and make money out of it.

   
   




2. CLUBHOUSE - Before they take you to the apartment, they will take you to the clubhouse which is conveniently located at the entrance of the property. Here they will show off all the various facilities like Gym, Badminton Court, Squash court, etc. Looking at this one will be very impressed with the quality of the facilities provided. This will be the condition when they have flats to sell. As soon as they finish selling all the flats, they will not even bother to maintain the clubhouse. A few months after people moved into their apartment the clubhouse was in ruins. The floor of the badminton court is damaged in several places. The convention hall looks like it has not been used in 20 years. No painting has been done anywhere. Although we have paid the maintenance for this clubhouse for the 3 years, Vakil has washed their hands off from their responsibility of maintaining it. We requested them several times to fix the facilities, but they just kept on ignoring all our requests. Only later I realized that they probably fix the issues with the clubhouse when they begin a new project so they can cheat people into buying flats by impressing them with the clubhouse. Look at the videos I have uploaded for proof.

   
   




3. SEWAGE – There is no proper method of disposing of sewage in Vakil Magnolia. So, what they have done, is to treat it in a sewage treatment plant and then dispose of that water right in front of our apartment in a huge pit that they have built. We can see this wonderful sight as soon as we open the door to the balcony. Because of this sewage water swimming pool, the mosquito infestation is huge. See the pics attached which I took from my balcony.

   
   




4. CONNECTIVITY – During the process of selling apartments, Vakil will say that they would operate an internal cab service that has been running for the past 7 years and will continue to run for the next 5. Not only will this cab operate inside the layout but will also take you to Chandapura and back. It seems very convenient because you can use that cab to go to the Chandapura market to buy your daily groceries and other necessities. However, this is another very big lie that they tell you to lure you into this trap. As soon as they finish selling off all the flats in an apartment, they will shut down this service giving bullshit reasons like the driver is not available. As a result, if you don’t have a vehicle or you have elderly people at home, you will be stranded in a deserted place with no means of transport. Although only the Ola cab service operates in this area, the frequency is so low that sometimes you will have to wait for many hours before you get a cab. Uber does not operate in this area.

   
   




5. OWNERSHIP OF THE LAND – Not all the land you see inside of Vakil Whispering Woods belongs to them. There are a lot of unacquired lands that belong to the local people inside the layout and those people are currently residing in sheds there. This makes it very unsafe for walking inside the layout at night. There have been multiple instances of robberies and a lot of reports of thieves inside the layout. This fact will conveniently not be shared with you while you are looking for property inside the layout.

   
   

In the end, I will say this, if I had known of all these issues before buying a flat here, I would have taken a U-turn the very first day I visited Vakil Whispering Woods. Take my advice, stay away from any Vakil establishment because if this is the state of affairs in this project, I am pretty sure all of their other projects will also be the same. They are not capable of providing basic necessities that even a very small builder can. Also, there has not been any development in and around this area for the past 10 years and it looks like it will remain as it is for the next 10.

Vakil Housing Development Corporation does not have the competence required to handle a project of this magnitude or for that matter, any magnitude. They are just a money-making machine who will cheat customers out of their hard-earned money by promising the sky and delivering a kind of quality that belongs in the gutter.

Thank you for reading.

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