'Mom sold all real estate': Bengaluru CEO shares plight of evicting defaulting tenants

With people on the internet terming landlords’ extreme intervention before lending their houses to tenants as ‘peak-Bengaluru moments’, the reality behind the move is justified by a city-based CEO. In one of the harrowing moments, Deepak Shenoy, the founder and CEO of Bengaluru-headquartered financial services, Capital Mind, described a personal experience based on a shared news clipping on X, formerly known as Twitter. The post mentioned the risks associated with real estate. The user captioned the post: “This still happens. Very few people talk about this risk in #realestate.”

Check out the post:

https://twitter.com/ActusDei/status/1683673130148192258

The newspaper highlighted the “end of an ordeal” through a story from The Times of India’s Bengaluru edition about how an elderly man reclaimed his flat from defaulting tenants after a four-year gap. Based on the report, a bounced cheque worth Rs 1 lakh was deposited by the couple who rented the flat in 2019.

The post garnered over 8.7 lakh views.

Sharing the story, Shenoy wrote about a personal setback faced by their family. The CEO described how his mother had to rush to the courthouse for two years for the same. Describing the scenario, he wrote: “To evict a tenant who refused to pay rent after the first month.” Furthermore, it took the Shenoy family two years to get a court order, then three months to actually evict the fraud before the cops were brought in.

As a result of the traumatic experience, his mother decided to sell all real estate and currently lives in the only house she owns. He further added: “Real estate is not something that works for us. More money has been made in the market with far lesser hassle, by us.”

Check out the post:

The post has amassed over 7.6 lakh views.

Check out some of the responses below:

“What are the red flags in your experience if someone wants to rent out their place? Your observations can help people,” asked one user.

https://twitter.com/Pun_Tweets/status/1683748264527695873

To which Shenoy replied: “The problem is in the legal system. Mostly people are honest - there will be difficult-to-identify rotten eggs, but if the legal system is fast, no problem renting them.”

https://twitter.com/deepakshenoy/status/1683748986476433408

Another user, objecting to Shenoy’s perspective said: “Far more money has been made by the majority of Indians in real estate. Very few have made significant equity wealth. Real estate works for most.”

https://twitter.com/Finprofz/status/1683680124024274945

In response, the CEO said: “Too bad, we made far more in equity. Don’t care about the rest, please fight your case and be happy.”

https://twitter.com/deepakshenoy/status/1683680680838934528

The event came to light after several cases of tenants sharing details of gruelling interviews by landlords before renting their place have come forward.