Clauses for Rental /Lease agreements

Source :BL;24th Oct 2011

Clauses to watch out for while preparing a rental agreement. This applies not only to commercial lease agreements but also to residential rental agreements you enter into on behalf of your company.

Repairs

A distinction should be made between major and minor repairs. The normal practice is for the landlord to be responsible for any and all major repairs to be conducted on the property (for example, any leaking / water seepage, major electrical problems, etc), and for the tenant to be responsible for all the minor ones (for example, replacing bulbs, motors, fixing minor leaks in plumbing, etc). The agreement should clearly state the same.

Wear and Tear

Certain features of the property are bound to deteriorate with time (like the paint coating, etc) and the tenant cannot be held responsible for the same.

The covenants should include a clause stating that the tenant will return the property in the condition he or she received it, subject to normal and acceptable wear and tear. This will save the tenant from having to paint the house or replace rusted fitting as long as the same was not caused by any direct act or negligence.

Maintenance / Association Charges

In the case of an apartment, there may be fixed monthly maintenance charges or apartment association charges. The normal practice is for the landlord to pay these charges. The agreement should contain a clause stating the same.

Rent

The agreement must contain the exact monthly rent payable by the tenant to the landlord, along with the method of payment (cheque, demand draft, etc) and details as to when the payment must be made (for example, rent must be paid on the 1st of every month, no later than the 5th of every month, in advance).

List of Furniture / Fixtures

If the property comes with any fixtures (lighting fixtures, paintings, chandeliers), furniture (carpets, beds, tables, chairs) or appliances (geysers, refrigerators, air conditioners), the same must be listed, counted and added as an annexure to the agreement and will form a part of the property.

The tenant must ensure that they are undamaged and in working condition before taking possession of the property, as he or she will be liable for them.

The wear and tear clause must apply to these items as well.

Duration of the Agreement

Strictly speaking, the agreement has to be registered, but as per common practice, it is not. The duration of the rental agreement varies, but is normally for 11 months with a clause for renewal of the lease on the mutual agreement of the parties. Some terms might change on renewal and the same should be mentioned in the agreement (for example, increase or rent, normally by a fixed percentage every year; increase in deposit, etc), or a clause stating that the terms may be modified pursuant to the renewal should be included in the agreement (allows the parties to decide on the terms at a later stage).

Notice of Termination

The agreement must contain a clause stating that the agreement can be terminated by either parties, and must state the manner of serving the notice and the duration (that is, informing the other party in advance if the possession of the property is to be altered. For example, notice must be served in writing, not less than one month in advance). Normally, two-month notice is sufficient.

Lock in Clause

Some agreements have a lock-in clause. This means that even though there is a fixed period of notice stated in the agreement, the tenant cannot leave until the lock-in period is over. (For example, if the lock-in period is five months, even if the tenant gives the landlord two-month notice in writing as per the agreement, he will still have to pay rent for the first five months, no matter when he gave notice). The tenant should be wary of this clause, especially if he is unsure of how long he intends to occupy the property. If the landlord is insistent on this clause, the tenant can try and add a provision for exceptional circumstances and the procedure to determine rights / liabilities in that regard (for example, lock-in clause will not apply if the tenant is transferred to another city, etc).

Contributed by vakilsearch (www.vakilsearch.com), 
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RBI moots awareness campaign on banking ombudsman scheme

Creating financial awareness: (from right) Mr M. Palaniswamy, Banking Ombudsman,

 RBI; Mr U.V. Kulkarni, DGM, RBIBangalore, and Mr J.S. Ravishankar, AGM,

 at a press conference in the city on Monday.

Source: BL:BANGALURU :OCT 24,2011
 Photo: G.R.N. Somashekar

A professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, lost Rs 18 lakh to an SMS 

fraud which lured him with $5 billion from a multinational company.

The Reserve Bank of India's Banking Ombudsman for Karnataka, Mr M. Palaniswamy, said that such cases were on the rise, and awareness of such fraud and phishing activities on the Internet space have to be spread.

He added that the RBI has now mandated people like him and his team to visit taluks and villages every month to spread awareness on the banking ombudsman scheme. “Not many people, even in the urban areas, are aware of this scheme,” he pointed out.

According to him, 3,694 complaints were received by his team in 2010-11 (the RBI follows a July to June calendar). Of these, the highest number of complaints was on failure on commitments made by banks to customers at 1,232, while complaints on ATM, debit and credit cards were at 768, followed by deposit-related complaints at 268 and 176 pension-related complaints.

On the other hand, State Bank of India and its associate banks were the banks which were complained against most at 1,521, “mainly because they have largest volume in terms of branch network”, Mr Palaniswamy pointed out.

However, 2009-10 saw more complaints at 4,343 complaints, and 2008-09 saw 3,524 complaints.

Last days of Steve Jobs

Sources ;Charles Duhigg, NYT News Service | Oct 8, 2011, 12.06AM IST

Over the last few months, a steady stream of visitors to Palo Alto, California, called an old friend's home number and asked if he was well enough to entertain visitors, perhaps for the last time.

In February, Steven Jobs had learned that, after years of fighting cancer, his time was becoming shorter. He quietly told a few acquaintances, and they, in turn, whispered to others. And so a pilgrimage began.

The calls trickled in at first. Just a few, then dozens, and in recent weeks, a nearly endless stream of people who wanted a few moments to say goodbye, according to people close to Jobs. Most were intercepted by his wife, Laurene. She would apologetically explain he was too tired to receive many visitors. In his final weeks, he became so weak that it was hard for him to walk up the stairs of his own home anymore, she confided to one caller.

Some asked if they might try again tomorrow. Sorry, she replied. The man who valued his privacy almost as much as his ability to leave his mark on the world had decided whom he most needed to see before he left.

Jobs spent his final weeks - as he had spent most of his life - in tight control of his choices. He invited a close friend, the physician Dean Ornish, to join him for sushi at one of his favorite restaurants in Palo Alto. He said goodbye to longtime colleagues, including the venture capitalistJohn Doerr, the Apple board member Bill Campbell and the Disney chief executive Robert A Iger. He offered Apple's executives advice on unveiling the iPhone 4S, which occurred on Tuesday. He spoke to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. He started a new drug regime, and told some friends that there was reason for hope.

On the days that he was well enough to go to Apple's offices, all he wanted afterward was to return home and have dinner with his family. Mostly, he spent time with his wife and four children - who will now oversee a fortune of at least $6.5 billion, and, take on responsibility for tending to the legacy of someone who was as much a symbol as a man.

"Steve made choices," Ornish said. "I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, 'It's 10,000 times better than anything I've ever done.'"

"But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn't think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left."

In his final months, Jobs's home - a large and comfortable but relatively modest brick house in a residential neighborhood - was surrounded by security guards. His driveway's gate was flanked by two black SUVs.

On Thursday, as online eulogies multiplied and the walls of Apple stores in Taiwan, New York,Shanghai and Frankfurt were papered with hand-drawn cards, the SUVs were removed and the sidewalk at his home became a garland of bouquets, candles and a pile of apples, each with one bite carefully removed.

"Everyone always wanted a piece of Steve," said one acquaintance who, in Jobs's final weeks, was rebuffed when he sought an opportunity to say goodbye. "He created all these layers to protect himself from the fan boys and other peoples' expectations and the distractions that have destroyed so many other companies. But once you're gone, you belong to the world."

Jobs's biographer, whose book will be published in two weeks, asked him why so private a man had consented to the questions of someone writing a book. "I wanted my kids to know me," Jobs replied, Isaacson wrote on Thursday in an essay on a website. "I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did."

Because of that privacy, little is known yet of what Jobs's heirs will do with his wealth. Unlike many prominent business people, he has never disclosed plans to give large amounts to charity. His shares in Disney, which Jobs acquired when the entertainment company purchased his animated film company, Pixar, are worth about $4.4 billion. That is double the $2.1 billion value of his shares in Apple.

Many people expect that attention will now focus on his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, who has largely avoided the spotlight, but is expected to oversee Jobs's fortune. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Powell Jobs worked in investment banking before founding a natural foods company. She then founded College Track, a program that pairs disadvantaged students with mentors who help them earn college degrees.

Jobs himself never got a college degree. Despite leaving Reed College after six months, he was asked to give the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. In that address, delivered after Jobs was told he had cancer but before it was clear that it would ultimately claim his life, he said the benefit of death is you know not to waste life living someone else's choices. "Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

In his final months, Jobs became even more dedicated to such sentiments. "Steve's concerns these last few weeks were for people who depended on him: the people who worked for him at Apple and his four children and his wife," said Mona Simpson, Jobs's sister. "His tone was tenderly apologetic at the end. He felt terrible that he would have to leave us."

As news of the seriousness of his illness became more widely known, Jobs was asked to attend farewell dinners and to accept various awards. He turned down the offers. When one acquaintance became too insistent on trying to send a gift to thank Jobs for his friendship, he was asked to stop calling. Mr. Jobs had other things to do before time ran out.

"He was very human," said his physician Ornish. "He was so much more of a real person than most people know. That's what made him so great."

©2011 The New York Times News Service

Steve Jobs' last big project: iPhone 5

Source :TOI Tech | Oct 17, 2011, 06.10PM IST

Steve Jobs' last big project was not iPhone 4S, but iPhone 5, according to a news report. According to the CNet report based on a research note made by Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar, the next-generation iPhone "was the last project that Steve Jobs was intimately involved with, from concept to final design. For that reason...this product will establish the high water mark for iPhone volumes."

In the note, Kumar claims that the phone will have a slimmer profile and larger screen size but will have the same dimensions as iPhone 4S. 

The iPhone 5 is also expected to have LTE, or Long Term Evolution, commonly referred to as 4G.



The analyst anticipates that iPhone 5 should debut during Apple's Developers Conference in summer of 2012.
Quoting another source, the report says that iPhone 5 is a "complete redesign" which people worldwide were eagerly waiting for. Jobs is said to be not that involved in the Apple 4S because he knew "his time was limited."

Apple's stock fell as much as almost 5% at one stage, as Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled iPhone 4S. Apple's newest iPhone failed to wow several of Wall Street analysts and Apple fans.

Bank of India files complaint against employee

Source :rupeetimes :Neelima Shankar :Oct 13,2011



The official posted in the Civil Lines branch of Allahabad has been accused of illegal transfer of funds worth Rs 34 lakhs from several accounts to a single account which turned out to be a fraudulous one.


The accused official named Ajay Mahendra is however absconding.


He opened the fake account in the name of Shahid Ali Siddiqui wherein he deposited funds amounting to Rs 34,66,000.


The fraud took place in the financial year 2009-10.

You have got (fake) mail from RBI

Source :Piyush Pandey, TNN Oct 12, 2011, 03.33AM IST

 A recent email doing the rounds, purportedly from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), informs account-holders that they are in for a windfall as the central bank has decided to release unclaimed deposits to the beneficiary.

The email, the latest version of online frauds, is full of errors. It states that RBI governor D Subbarao met with the senate committee on finance, although there is no such committee.

RBI spokesperson Alpana Kilawala said the mail was fraudulent, there was no such communication, and Subbarao had not attended any such meeting. "We lodge police complaints when such fraudulent mails are brought to our notice. We have put up two advisory notes on our website asking people not to pay money to receive funds from abroad. RBI never asks for your bank account details."

Scams employed by fraudsters include one where the recipient is told to send funds to cover the cost of remitting proceeds of a lottery he has won.

 In another phishing scam, account-holders are sent a link to a website that looks like the genuine homepage of a bank site, but is a trap to record the useras password. International scamsters seek account details of individuals whom them entrap into acting as a˜money mulesa as a conduit for transferring funds stolen from other accounts.

The fake RBI email states that the recipient is listed as a beneficiary in the recent schedule for payment.

 "We are writing this email to inform you that 750,000 GBP {Seven Hundred Fifty Thousand Great British Pounds Sterling} will be release to you, as it was committed for (RBI) Governor that Beneficiary will have to pay crediting fees only. So you are therefore required to pay 24,500 INR ONLY. To credit your account immediately making a decline for 2 working day after date of receiving this mail. Also reconfirm/provide your bank account details-for crediting."

An earlier statement by RBI advised the general public against responding to offers of moneys from abroad. It stated that they are fraudulent and advised people to immediately register a complaint with the local police or cyber crime authorities when they receive such offers or become a victim of such fraud.

The stink coming from Dhanlaxmi Bank: AIBOC raises serious allegations

Source: Moneylife Digital Team :October 10, 2011 06:11 PM


In a memorandum to the RBI, AIBOC 
has raised several questions over 
Dhanlaxmi Bank’s business operations 

After whistleblowers raised a red flag raising questions about the operations of Dhanlaxmi Bank, the All-India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) has alerted the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regarding the bank’s wrongdoing. Specifically, it has alleged that the bank has manipulated accounts and provisioning, has a mismatch in asset-liability resources, maintains poor capital adequacy ratio and has huge dependence on call money borrowing. 

It has also accused the bank for ignoring social banking and financial inclusion.
 
AIBOC’s Kerala committee, through a memorandum sent to the RBI, has appealed to the apex bank and the finance ministry, to initiate investigations against the bank management and asked it to merge it with any public sector bank to safeguard the interest of employees and the customers of the bank. 

Speaking about the obvious mismatch in the asset-liability, it is stated in the memorandum that, “The Bank’s liquidity position is potentially dangerous with the enormous proportion of Inter Bank deposit in its deposit mix. Out of the Rs13,000 crore  of  deposits (that) the  Bank  has,  around  70% are  purchased funds, i.e., Inter  Bank deposits (Rs1,600 crore), Certificate of Deposits (Rs2,500) crore and other ‘special-rate’ quoted deposits (at) Rs5,000 crore.” 

According to the memorandum, the bank is heavily dependent on call money borrowing. “The average call money borrowing in the last one year is Rs300 crore per day. In fact, the Bank is borrowing from the call money market heavily since the last two years and is lending it with a margin in violation of the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India.” 

AIBOC says in the memorandum that the bank’s growth has be stunted with 50% fall in current deposits, from Rs1,500 crore to Rs790 crore, and sharp decline in its profit to Rs3 crore in the first quarter of 2011 from Rs55 crore in 2009. It also says, “Advances grew by 10% (Rs900 crore), but out of this, Rs550 crore are not retail loans, but “buyouts”. 

The memorandum has cautioned the RBI about non-performing assets (NPAs) turning into bad debts, which would severely affect the bank.


 “The Bank’s capital adequacy ratio at present is touching 9%, and this can come down at any moment, in case a big loan turns (into an) NPA.


The asset portfolio of the Bank is also equally daunting with more than 20% constituted by ‘buyouts’ and another 40% by corporate advances. The composition and health of these loans are not individually scrutinized and therefore have  grave risk (of) further mounting of NPAs once these loans turn into bad debts for which there is every possibility.”  

It further states that the bank has manipulated accounts and various provisions


. “The  available information is that the Bank adopted a lot of unscrupulous methods to show  at least a nominal profit in the last one year.


 Deferring expenses like salary paid to  executives, telephone, rent, ATM expenses, capitalizing revenue expenses like salary  paid to staff etc are frequently practiced by the Bank.”  

According to the AIBOC’s memorandum to the apex bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank recruited many new officers without uniform salary structure. “There is no policy for fixing remuneration of C to C employees. It depends on the relative bargaining strength of the new recruits. There is no transparency on the “performance linked bonus” or “joining bonus”, or “committed bonus” paid to C to C employees.”  

AIBOC’s Kerala unit says, “The organizational structure has been revised umpteen times in the last 30 months. New “verticals” have come up but not stabilized because  of the frequent  changes. Some functions are duplicated, others neglected.” 

The memorandum said that the bank has been avoiding granting loans to the priority sector such as small agricultural loans, educational loans, etc.  

In fact, according to sources close to the development, AIBOC’s Kerala State Committee is holding a dharna in front of the regional office of the RBI in Thiruvananthapuram on this contentious issue. 

Incidentally, according to AIBOC, there was detailed inspection by the RBI on Dhanlaxmi Bank. The apex bank, after coming out with “detailed inspection in Dhanlaxmi Bank, has come out with alarming facts about all the above and has asked the Bank to provide more than Rs100 crore towards the unaccounted expenses and  provisions by debiting the net worth of the Bank.” 

Dhanlaxmi Bank has refused to comment on the issue.


 It said that, “Like all banks, we are also regulated by the RBI and the growth is monitored by the regulator periodically. The baseless allegations are being spread by some people who are trying to spoil the image of the bank.”