How to Take Possession of Property?

How do you take possession of property?

Question: A brother explained his problem: we have a property in Lahore. Relatives have been living there for twenty-two years and don't pay rent. Our father died last year. Now we want possession of the house. Can we ask for the past rent, and can we ask for the damage caused to the property?

Solution: Keep one thing in mind: the owner is the owner, the tenant is the tenant, and the occupant is the occupant. No one can take the owner's place. Now, as far as wanting possession of the house goes, the procedure is quite simple. File an ejectment application, file a partition suit, or file a reply to partition proceedings against them, stating that our father rented this out during his lifetime, that our father passed away last year, that we are the lawful heirs, and that we are telling them to vacate, and they keep putting it off day after day. If your father was ill, mention his illness, how many years he was ill. And you are entitled to rent from after your father's death, not before, because before that you had no connection to it at all. If your father, during his lifetime, had said they didn't pay him rent, then that rent was owed to him. Now he hasn't said anything, he has passed from this world, so you don't get that rent, the rent they didn't pay for twenty-two years. You get only the rent from after your father's death. Write in your reply to the partition proceedings that my father died on such-and-such date, and it has been so long, and they are neither paying rent nor vacating the house. Take them to court over this. The court will accept the reply to the partition proceedings and you will get possession.

As for damages, to establish damages you first need something to point to, and then you need a forum to prove the damages. Now you say they've lived there for twenty-two years. If twenty-two years ago it was given to them as a brand-new house, do you have a full inventory of that new house, made by your father, saying, we are giving you this in this condition, and we will take it back in this condition? If you don't have that, then I can only express regret.

Let me clarify something here. When we rent out property, we make a very big mistake. The law says that if a tenant has damaged your property, he must make it good, but the law helps those who are alert about their own rights, not those who are asleep. In ninety percent of the rent agreements that come to me, no inventory at all is written down, no inventory stating that this building is being rented to you, its doors are in this condition, its woodwork is in this condition, its whitewash is in this condition, its bathrooms are in this condition, its drawing room is in this condition, it has this many bedrooms and they are in this condition, and so on. You should have all of this written down in full, so that tomorrow, when the day comes for the tenant to vacate, that inventory can be placed before him: brother, here are your signatures, here is our detailed record, and according to this record, you must restore everything. I insist strongly on this point, and I advise you: whenever you rent something out, this full detail should be part of the rent agreement.

Don't misunderstand this to mean cramming everything onto a single stamp paper. Rather, there should be a separate inventory attached to the rent agreement, forming part of it, and on top of every page of that detailed inventory, get the tenant's thumbprint and signature, on however many pages, two, three, four, five, six, whatever it takes, saying, sir, this is that inventory, so that future troubles can be avoided.

So, brother, the damages you are asking about cannot be recovered, because your father gave the place twenty-two years ago. Your father passed away last year, so now you cannot recover those damages, because before you can claim damages you must specify what the damages are, and you cannot specify what the damages are, because they did not rent it from you. Now, take it back in whatever condition it is in. File the ejectment application, whichever city you are in.

I believe you are in Lahore. I am in Lahore. I don't give references for cities outside Lahore, because I was given some bad references before, and since I work online, I can't take the risk of giving references in other cities where they won't follow through properly, because these days, with social media and everything, it's me who ends up getting blamed. That's why I don't give references. Since you are from Lahore, and you have specifically written that, my services are available in Lahore. Come to me, I will help you.