If you own — or are planning to buy — a unit in a builder floor in South Delhi, you’ve probably asked yourself one question sooner or later: “Who pays for the lift, and how much?” It’s one of the most common sources of friction between owners in a four-floor building, and honestly, it’s also one of the easiest problems to prevent if it’s addressed at the right time — before possession, not after a dispute breaks out.
At Grovy India, we’ve developed and sold builder floors across South Delhi for years, and one lesson we keep relearning is this: a clear, written, and fair common expense framework saves relationships, time, and money. For buyers, choosing the right construction company also means looking beyond the design and specifications and understanding how common facilities and ongoing expenses will be managed. In this post, we’ll walk you through exactly how common expenses — particularly the lift and electricity for common areas — should be calculated, divided, and managed among four independent owners sharing one building.
Why Builder Floors Are Different From Apartments
In a typical multi-storey apartment complex, there’s usually a Resident Welfare Association (RWA) or a builder-appointed facility management company that collects a monthly maintenance charge and handles everything centrally. Builder floors don’t usually have that layer of formal management. You have four owners, each holding an independent, registered unit, and — unless a system is set up — no single entity responsible for common area upkeep.
This informality is actually one of the attractions of a builder floor: lower maintenance costs, more control, and a smaller, more personal community. But it also means the responsibility for setting up a fair cost-sharing system falls either on the developer (at the time of handover) or on the owners themselves (after possession). Left undefined, this almost always leads to disagreements — especially around two recurring costs: the lift and common area electricity.
For developers working across different residential formats, the same principle of transparency applies whether the project involves a conventional builder floor, turnkey affordable construction, or a larger redevelopment arrangement. Buyers and property owners benefit when responsibilities and costs are clearly defined from the beginning.
The Two Big Common Expenses: Lift and Electricity
1. The Lift
The lift serves all four floors, but not all floors use it equally. The ground floor owner may barely use it at all, while the top (fourth) floor owner depends on it daily. This mismatch is the single biggest reason lift-cost disputes arise. There are three broad approaches developers and owners typically use:
Equal Split (25% each): Every owner pays an equal share regardless of floor. This is the simplest to administer but is often seen as unfair to the ground floor owner, who may use the lift rarely.
Weighted by Floor Level: Higher floors pay a higher percentage since they derive more benefit. For example, in a 4-floor building, a common weighted structure might look like:
- Ground Floor: 10%
- First Floor: 20%
- Second Floor: 30%
- Third Floor: 40%
This reflects the principle that usage (and mechanical wear from carrying loads higher up) increases with height.
Hybrid Model: A base equal component (say 50% split equally among all four, covering fixed costs like AMC and standby charges that exist regardless of usage) plus a variable, floor-weighted component for electricity/usage-linked costs.
At Grovy India, we generally recommend the hybrid model to our buyers because a portion of lift cost (Annual Maintenance Contract, safety certification, insurance) is fixed and unrelated to how much any one owner uses it — while another portion (electricity consumption, wear and tear) genuinely does scale with usage and floor level.
2. Common Area Electricity
This typically includes:
- Lift power consumption
- Common area/staircase lighting
- Motor and water pump for the overhead tank
- CCTV and security systems, if installed
- Gate and boundary lighting
Unlike the lift, common electricity is usually split equally among all four owners, since staircase lighting, water pumping, and security benefit everyone identically regardless of floor. The exception is if the lift’s electricity is billed separately from other common electricity — in that case, the lift portion can follow the weighted formula above, while the rest of the common electricity is split equally.
Step-by-Step: How We Recommend Setting This Up
Step 1: Install a Separate Common Area Electricity Meter
This is non-negotiable and should be done at the construction stage itself, not after handover. A dedicated meter for common areas (lift, staircase lights, pump, gate) ensures the bill reflects only shared consumption — not any individual owner’s personal usage. Without this, disputes over “who used how much power” become impossible to resolve fairly, because everyone’s consumption gets mixed into one number.
Step 2: Define the Split Formula in Writing — Before Possession
The single most important thing a developer can do is hand over a written common area agreement along with the sale deed or possession letter. This document should clearly state:
- The exact percentage or formula each floor pays for lift maintenance (AMC, repairs, insurance)
- The exact percentage or formula each floor pays for common electricity
- Who collects the money and how often
- What happens if a payment is delayed or defaulted
- How the formula will be reviewed if usage patterns change (e.g., if one owner installs a home lift-stop or restricts children’s access)
At Grovy India, we now include this as a standard annexure in our sale agreements for every multi-owner builder floor project, precisely because we’ve seen how much smoother possession goes when this is settled upfront rather than negotiated after four strangers move in.
Step 3: Set Up a Simple Collection & Payment System
Four owners don’t need a full-fledged RWA, but they do need some structure. The most practical options we’ve seen work well:
Rotating Collector: One owner (rotated annually) collects the fixed monthly contribution from all four and pays the lift AMC vendor and electricity bill.
Joint Account: A simple joint savings account where all four owners deposit their share monthly via auto-debit or standing instruction, and bills are paid from this account.
Digital Expense-Splitting Tools: Apps like Splitwise, or even a shared Google Sheet with UPI auto-reminders, work surprisingly well for four-unit buildings and avoid the awkwardness of chasing a neighbour for money.
Whichever method you choose, transparency is key — every owner should be able to see what was collected, what was spent, and what the bill breakdown was.
Step 4: Get the Lift AMC and Electricity Billed in the Building’s Name (Not an Individual’s)
Where possible, we recommend that the lift AMC contract and the common electricity connection be registered in the name of the “association of owners” or a nominated representative — not any single individual owner. This avoids the situation where one owner is legally on the hook for a bill that four people are supposed to be sharing.
Step 5: Revisit the Formula Periodically
Life changes. A ground-floor owner may rent out their unit to a large family that uses the lift constantly for grocery deliveries; a top-floor owner might work from home and barely use it. We recommend owners revisit the cost-sharing formula once a year — not to constantly renegotiate, but to confirm it’s still reasonable, and to catch any drift in usage patterns early, before resentment builds up.
What Happens If Owners Can’t Agree?
Even with the best documentation, disagreements can happen — especially if a unit changes hands and a new owner wasn’t part of the original agreement. A few practical suggestions:
Bind the formula to the property, not the person. The common expense agreement should be referenced in the sale deed itself, so it transfers automatically to any future buyer of that floor. This is something we ensure at the documentation stage for every project we deliver.
Keep a simple grievance path. If one owner disputes the formula, the agreement should specify a resolution mechanism — for instance, a majority vote among the four owners, or referring the matter to a neutral third party (even the original developer can sometimes play this role informally).
Avoid ad-hoc changes. Resist the temptation to change the split every time there’s a minor disagreement. Frequent renegotiation erodes trust faster than an imperfect-but-stable formula.
A Sample Framework We’ve Used
For reference, here’s a simplified version of a cost-sharing structure we’ve implemented in some of our own South Delhi builder floor projects:
| Expense Head | Split Basis | Ground Floor | 1st Floor | 2nd Floor | 3rd Floor |
| Lift AMC & Repairs (Fixed) | Equal | 25% | 25% | 25% | 25% |
| Lift Electricity (Usage-linked) | Weighted by floor | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% |
| Staircase/Common Lighting | Equal | 25% | 25% | 25% | 25% |
| Water Pump & Motor | Equal | 25% | 25% | 25% | 25% |
| CCTV/Security (if applicable) | Equal | 25% | 25% | 25% | 25% |
This structure balances fairness (higher floors pay more for the resource they use most) with simplicity (fixed costs are shared equally since they benefit everyone). Individual buildings can, of course, adjust these percentages based on the number of floors, lift capacity, or specific owner preferences — but having some documented formula from day one is far more important than getting the exact percentages perfect.
Our Approach at Grovy India
As a developer and construction company building and selling individual builder floor units, we’ve made it a practice to:
- Install separate common-area electricity metering in every project.
- Draft a common expense-sharing annexure as part of the sale documentation.
- Recommend (and help set up, where needed) a simple joint account or digital collection system for new owners.
- Walk every buyer through the expected common charges before they book, not after possession.
Our broader approach to property development can also include plot collaboration services, where property owners and developers work together on redevelopment projects under an agreed commercial and construction structure. While the arrangements differ from a builder-floor purchase, the same principle applies: responsibilities, costs, timelines, and deliverables should be clearly documented before construction begins.
This transparency not only prevents disputes down the line — it’s also something increasingly informed buyers are asking about upfront. A builder floor with a clear, documented common-expense framework is simply a more attractive, lower-friction purchase than one where buyers are left to figure it out among themselves.
In Summary
The lift and common electricity are small line items in the overall cost of owning a builder floor — but handled poorly, they cause disproportionately large friction between neighbours. The fix isn’t complicated: separate metering, a written and floor-appropriate formula, a simple and transparent collection system, and documentation that travels with the property rather than the person. Get these four things right, and four independent owners can share one building smoothly for decades.
If you’re considering buying a builder floor unit with us, feel free to ask for a copy of our standard common-expense-sharing template — we’re happy to walk you through it before you make your decision.
