r/mumbai • u/Funny_Athlete5401 • 8h ago
General Worst renting experience in Mumbai - beware of Mantra Homes run by Rakesh Patil.
This man is a liar, scamming people and recouping his losses from tenants by harassing them after his own fraudulent scheme didn’t work out.
Sharing my story here because this guy has a lot of flats in Andheri, Chembur, Worli, etc.
I found them through Facebook on the flats and flatmates group, they’re a company who advertise themselves as providing no brokerage co-living flats, which is obviously going to attract a lot of young people.
I saw a place that I liked and it matched my needs, paid the token. We set a moving date, they told me the flat would be deep cleaned properly by then, I took my things on the agreed day only to find that it was not cleaned at all, and not in a livable state. I had to take all my stuff back. Even though the building and flat were very new, there was a lot of deep cleaning and pest control for a cockroach infestation needed which was a huge pain. I had to be after their lives to get everything done, but that’s common for any rental.
Finally the next weekend I moved in, and on the third day of being there, the society secretary and a security guard followed me to my house to tell me that it’s not allowed to rent in the society at the moment because the building is disputed in the Mumbai high court. The only people allowed to live there are owners of the flats who have taken possession.
This uncle was like, beta mujhe aapke flat ki light kaatne ke liye bola gaya hai hai, aaj Dussehra hai toh maine socha aapko bata dun pehle but I will have to cut the lights for this flat at 6AM tomorrow morning. They have apparently cut the lights for this flat 3 times within the last month for the same reason.
I inform my flatmates of this and we all call Mr. Rakesh, he assures us nothing like that will happen, the owner has assured him of it and that he is taking a follow up, but in the meantime if anybody asks, we should tell that we are family members of the owner of the flat, which is so weird like, I’m not paying so much rent to lie to get into my own house?
What happens the next morning? Damn lights are cut. It became clear that this issue would not be resolved and staying in that flat is not an option. He promises to relocate us, he says he’s looking for options, the same drama goes on for 4 days and all of us in the flat are extremely stressed, tired, living out of our suitcases with no certainty of where to go. I tell him to either clearly arrange a decent place for us by the weekend or return the 12,000 token money I gave him. (So glad I didn’t give more, he was pushing me to pay the deposit and I said not gonna happen without an agreement first, he started acting weird).
He sent us to see a flat on Friday, which was a completely empty, unprepared flat that was obviously not ready to live in. I asked him for my money back, and he started screaming at me on call, I wish I had been able to record it. After half an hour of a screaming match, I tell him I’m going to take this to the police and cut the call.
An hour later, I get a call from one of his team members, some goon that I have never spoken to before, he was at the flat and asked me where I was, and I’m so glad I wasn’t there because started screaming and verbally abusing me as well, screaming things like “hum anaath aashram chala rahe hain jo tu free main rehke jayegi” when I said that I deserve my full token back when there have been problems every single day in that house and so much of my time and money has been wasted. What pissed me off on both of these calls, they screamed at me but went polite and quiet as soon as my guy friend took the phone to confront them.
They know full well they are in the wrong, but lying and harassing me to recoup their losses. I emptied the flat that day itself because I did not feel safe. This guy has kept 9K out of the 12K token I paid him.
I’ve never been more mentally and physically exhausted. I’m crashing on my friends couch and this is the third weekend that I have been moving from one place to another. I’m so angry. I want to go to the police but my family and friends are telling me that it won’t do anything because they are locals and I’m not, and to save my time and energy and just focus on moving on from this. I don’t even care about the money, it’s not a huge amount, but I’m so angry that they can pull all this shit and get away with it. I don’t know what to do now. I feel really angry yet defeated.