Cessed Buildings

Refers to a building that pays cess -- a tax commonly referred to as the "repair fund". The tax is paid by the tenants of the building to the housing body- MHADA for repairs and reconstruction of that building. Under the MHADA Act the cessed buildings are categorised under three heads:

Category A of cessed buildings - buildings erected before 1 September 1940,

Category B of cessed buildings - buildings erected between 1 September 1940 and 31 December 1950,

Category C of cessed buildings - building erected between 1 January 1951 and 30 September 1959

The Govt. of Maharashtra with a view to deal with the problems of repairs and reconstructions of old dilapidated tenanted buildings in the Island City of Mumbai whose rents were frozen at the year 1940 as per the provisions of the Rent Control Act, formed the Bedekar Committee in the year 1968. On recommendations of the said Committee, Govt. of Maharashtra passed the Bombay Building Repairs and Reconstruction Act in the year 1969. Under the provisions of this Act, the Bombay Building Repairs and Reconstruction Board was formed in the year 1971. A repair cess was levied on old dilapidated tenanted buildings under the provisions of this Act. Thus, these buildings were called cessed buildings. Till 1977, this board was directly functioning under government.Subsequently this Act was merged with the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Act 1976 in December 1977. There are around 16,000 buildings that heve been declared as cessed buildings.