Hi,
My father had got into a Pagdi Agreement for a house in early 1980's for a nominal value against the property value and a nominal rent on a monthly basis. Since then, he used to travel out of India for his work. Back at home, it was my me, my sister and mom who stayed at the house until 2009. In 2009, my sister shifted to her in-laws place, I bought a new flat and stayed with my wife and mom & dad went abroad for good. For a year, the pagdi house was vacant, and locked with our old furniture.
In 2010, when my dad came back and went to the landlord to pay him the rent, he refused to accept the rent and expressed his dissatisfaction as no one had informed him that the house will be kept vacant for a year. For the past 3.5 years, he haven't been accepting the rent from us and have been asking us to vacate the house for the same amount which dad had paid him in 1980's. Until last month my parents used to stay with us during the weekdays and used to visit the Pagdi house during the weekends. We have preserved all the rent receipts as well as electricity bills right from 1980's until 2009.
Now the landlord is adamant that he will never accept the rent and that we will have to vacate the house. We have heard the rumours that the area is being considered for re-development and many developers are in active negotiations with the landlords there. Unfortunately as my dad had passed away early this year, and we want to preserve this pagdi house, as it was his last wish to settle the issue with the landlord and clear the ownership issue with him.
Kindly advise as to how can we regain the ownership for this house, as my father is no more and that the original agreement was on his name which wasn't registered/notorized as there was no such official pagdi law back then.
Regards
Amit
