[gs268]

Me and my wife are NRIs. My wife purchased a flat in Chennai 5 years ago before our marriage. The flat is in her and her father’s name and he resides in Chennai. The flat was purchased from another owner and not from the builder directly. During this purchase, the flat was occupied by a tenant at that time (he had been there for about 6 months) but, he continued to live there after my wife bought the flat. He has been paying a monthly rent (in cash) to my father-in-law, so ideally there are no receipts. There was no live & license agreement completed, a simple stamp paper document was signed by two parties viz. my father-in-law and the tenant. It has been 5 years now since the flat was purchased by us and the same tenant is still occupying our flat. So far, we do not have any urgent need of the flat but I am starting to worry if we may lose hold of it since, he has been there for quite a while. Is it a wise decision to change tenants at this time since it has been such a long time (more than 5 years now). Do I need to worry about this at all or am I just being paranoid? The tenant hails from Rajasthan and is in his mid-forties, married and has a kid. My father-in-law says there is nothing to worry since, he thinks the tenant is very nice person but I am not sure if this statement is convincing enough to let someone stay in our flat for such a long time. Can you please advise if we need to take any legal measures or should we ask the tenant to vacate. We can always say that we are planning to relocate to India for temporary period and will need the flat.

Thanks.

GS