Society Maintenance Billing Under the 2026 Maharashtra Rules: How to Set Up Your Charge Heads Correctly

On 18 June 2026, Maharashtra’s Co-operation Department notified amendments to the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Rules, 1961, with a new set of rules for housing societies numbered 106C onwards, as reported by TaxGuru. Law firm King Stubb & Kasiva reports that they took effect on 30 June 2026. Four months later, I still see societies in Navi Mumbai and Thane sending the same bill they sent last year, worked out per square foot from an Excel sheet someone built a decade ago.

The rules fit on one page. The hard part is the billing setup: which heads exist, what basis each uses, which flat data feeds it, how interest works, and how old arrears move across cleanly. That is what this post covers. I run Infoways, a software company in Mahape that builds billing and resident apps for housing societies, so I read these rules as settings we have to configure. I am not a lawyer. The rules below come from published legal and news reports of the notification, which I link, and your society’s adviser or auditor should confirm the mapping before you change a bill.

How do you set up society maintenance billing under the 2026 Maharashtra rules?

Set up society maintenance billing by creating one charge head for each item the rules list, giving each head its reported basis (per flat, per sq ft of carpet area, per tap, per slot or a percentage of construction cost), loading the flat data each basis needs, configuring simple interest within the 12% cap, carrying arrears forward flat by flat, and testing one full bill run before going live.

Before June 2026, most societies followed bye-laws 66 and 67 of the model bye-laws, and the basis for service charges varied: some used carpet area, some built-up area, some the value of the flat. Free Press Journal’s housing column of 13 July 2026 reports that rule 106C-12(4) now lists the charges and the basis for working out each member’s share. For a billing system, one rate becomes about a dozen heads, each calculated differently. The sections below follow the order we configure them in.

1. Map every charge head to its basis

Every charge head in your billing setup must follow the basis the 2026 rules give it. The table below lists each head, the basis as reported, and the setting a billing system needs to apply it.

King Stubb & Kasiva reports that service charges are now levied uniformly and that societies may not levy charges the Act or the Rules do not authorise. So every head needs a reason you can point to, and the right basis.

Source: TaxGuru on the MCS (Amendment) Rules 2026, Free Press Journal, 13 July 2026, King Stubb & Kasiva. Secondary reports of the notification; confirm against the gazette and your bye-laws. The settings column is our practice, not part of the rules.

The bases fall into four calculation types: a fixed amount per flat or member, a rate per sq ft of carpet area, a rate per unit (tap or slot), and a percentage of another figure. A billing system that only offers “rate per sq ft” for everything cannot bill under these rules.

2. Build the flat master data before the first bill

The billing system is only as correct as the data held against each flat. Under the 2026 bases, every flat needs carpet area, certified construction cost, tap count, parking allotment, let-out status and its wing, because each of those drives at least one charge head.

In our work setting up society billing, this is where most of the time goes. The charge-head settings take an afternoon. Collecting the flat data takes weeks, because it sits in different places: carpet area in the registered agreements, tap counts in the sanctioned plan (if anyone can find it), parking in a committee register, and let-out status in the secretary’s memory.

Fields map to the bases reported by TaxGuru and Free Press Journal; per-flat GST from CBIC Circular 109/28/2019-GST. “What we often find” is Infoways’ experience, not survey data.

The certified construction cost deserves a special mention. The base for both funds is construction cost, not market value. An architect’s certificate of what it cost to build a flat is usually far below what it would sell for today, so never let the system calculate these percentages from a resale price. If it does not exist, commission it once; both funds depend on it every year.

3. Service charges: separate the expense pool first

Service charges are the society’s running costs that do not depend on flat size, and the 2026 rules are reported to require them to be split equally by the number of flats. Before the system can do that, lift, water, insurance, property tax and the funds must come out of the pool and into their own heads.

The first thing we ask a committee for is the list of expenses it treats as service charges, and it is often longer than it should be. Lift running costs, water and insurance get folded into one “maintenance” figure per square foot, which made sense when everything was on one basis. Leave them in, and the equal split gets applied to costs that should follow carpet area or taps.

The equal split also moves money between members: where service charges were per square foot, 1 BHK owners paid less than an equal share of the watchman’s salary. The total collected does not change; who pays it does.

4. Configure the funds: sinking, repair and major repair

Configure the sinking fund at a minimum of 0.25% a year and the repair and maintenance fund at a minimum of 0.75% a year of each flat’s certified construction cost, each as a separate head with its own ledger. Keep the major repair fund switched off until the general body resolves to collect it, then bill it on carpet area.

These are reported minimums, and a general body can resolve to collect more, so the percentage should be a setting tied to a resolution, not a number buried in a formula.

The major repair fund is the head we see set up wrong most often in older software: it is either missing or left running after the resolution that approved it has lapsed. A start date, an end date and the resolution number on the head itself solve both problems.

See also: for how the funds, ledgers and receipts sit inside one system, see our housing society software page.

5. What interest rate should society billing software charge on late maintenance?

Under the June 2026 rules, interest on unpaid dues is reported as capped at 12% a year, simple interest, at a rate the general body fixes. King Stubb & Kasiva reports this as a cut from 21% to 12%. Your billing system should calculate interest only on unpaid principal, never on earlier interest, at no more than 12% a year.

The reports differ slightly: TaxGuru describes a general body rate up to 12% simple, Free Press Journal a flat 12%. A 12% simple setting fits both readings; anything above 12% should come out of the settings now. Your adviser can confirm the gazette wording.

At 12% a year, simple interest is 1% a month on the overdue principal. The table shows how far an old 21% compounding formula drifts from the cap on one overdue bill.

Illustrative arithmetic only, rounded to the rupee. Rates: King Stubb & Kasiva (21% to 12%) and TaxGuru (12% simple). Grace periods under your bye-laws are ignored here.

Interest settings to check in any system

• Rate: the general body’s rate, with a hard 12% ceiling.
• Method: simple interest on principal; interest kept in its own column, never added to principal.
• Start date: the bye-law due date plus any grace period, both as settings.
• Part payments: one minuted rule, agreed with your adviser, for whether payments clear the oldest bill or interest first.
• Working on the bill: overdue amount, period, rate and interest, so a member can check it.

6. Arrears and opening balances: the migration step that breaks most setups

When a society moves to new billing software, each flat’s opening balance must come across split into unpaid principal and unpaid interest, with a schedule of the bills behind it, signed off by the treasurer and auditor. A single lump figure per flat carries every old error into the new system.

In our setups, most errors in the parallel cycle come from opening arrears carried over from the old sheet: interest at 21% sitting inside the “principal” figure, a payment that reached the bank but never reached the ledger, an advance treated as arrears, or a balance from the builder’s time with no breakdown at all.

Do not write old balances off because they are old. In January 2026, the Bombay High Court held that maintenance dues are a recurring obligation and a continuing wrong, and that the Limitation Act does not apply to recovery under section 154B-29, according to RAW Law’s summary of the judgment. A clean, itemised opening balance is the record the society relies on if it ever has to recover the amount.

See also: once opening balances are clean, the next job is bringing them down. Read how to reduce society maintenance arrears.

7. What should a society maintenance bill include?

A society maintenance bill should show every charge head on its own line with its basis and working, then arrears, interest and current charges separately, the due date, the society’s registration and payment details, and a flat-wise reference members can quote when they pay.

Here is a sample monthly bill for one 650 sq ft flat in an imaginary 100-flat society, generated line by line on the bases above. Every figure is an illustration to show the method, not a benchmark for what your society should charge. Assumptions: service costs of ₹2,50,000 a month across 100 flats; a certified construction cost of ₹15,00,000 for this flat; a yearly insurance premium of ₹1,20,000 over 65,000 sq ft of total carpet area; lift costs of ₹24,000 a month for a 40-flat wing; water at ₹90 per tap with 5 taps; one parking slot at a general body rate of ₹500; no major repair fund resolved this year.

Illustrative figures only. Bases as reported by TaxGuru and Free Press Journal. Your society’s heads and amounts will differ.

Two settings errors show up clearly here. The funds are the second-largest item, so a wrong construction-cost field moves every bill. And non-occupancy is ₹250 because it is worked out on service charges alone; 10% of the whole bill would be ₹613, above the reported cap.

The receipt

Every payment should produce a numbered receipt showing flat, amount, date, mode, reference and how it was applied (which bill, principal or interest). When receipt and ledger come from one entry, nothing needs matching by hand later.

Where GST fits

CBIC Circular 109/28/2019-GST exempts members’ contributions up to ₹7,500 a month per member, and a society with turnover of ₹20 lakh or less a year need not register. Above both limits, the circular applies 18% to the whole amount, with the limit counted per flat. The Madras High Court took the view in 2021 that only the excess is taxable, and Business Today reported in April 2025 that this remains contested outside Tamil Nadu. A GST-registered society needs a per-flat limit check and a GST line; the method is your CA’s call.

8. Audit-ready ledgers and member records

An audit-ready setup keeps one ledger per flat, one ledger per fund, and the general body resolution linked to every charge head and to the interest rate, so the society can show any member or auditor the basis and working behind any figure on request.

This is not only good practice. Section 154B-8 of the Act gives members the right to inspect and get copies of specified society records without having to say why, as Free Press Journal reported in August 2026. In that case, a Deputy Registrar disqualified eight committee members of an Andheri East society for five years after they did not provide records despite directions. A system that prints a flat’s ledger, the resolution behind each head and a log of who changed what takes most of that risk off the committee.

9. Test a bill run before going live

Before members see a bill from the new setup, run one full billing cycle both ways, old method and new, and compare every flat. Every difference should be explained by a rule change or a data correction; anything else is a setup error.

We never send the first bill from a new setup without a parallel run. These are the errors it catches most often, each one a line a member would otherwise query.

Rules as reported by TaxGuru and King Stubb & Kasiva. Error patterns are from Infoways’ setup work. Not legal advice.

10. What to demand from any society billing app

Whichever app you use, it should let each charge head have its own basis, hold the flat data those bases need, enforce simple interest within 12%, import opening balances split by principal and interest, link heads to resolutions, and print a complete flat ledger on demand. Ask to see each of these in a demo, using your own data.

Requirements derived from the rules as reported by TaxGuru, Free Press Journal and King Stubb & Kasiva. The demo tests are our suggestion.

Ready-made society apps cover much of this list, and for most single societies one of them is the right start; our comparison of MyGate, NoBrokerHood and ADDA looks at how each one positions billing. If the same app also runs your gate, our guide to visitor management for housing societies covers what to check there. Once bills are right, collecting them is the next job: see how to collect society maintenance online.

Where this advice breaks down

This is a careful reading of published reports turned into billing settings, and it has limits you should know.

• I have relied on secondary sources. TaxGuru, Free Press Journal and King Stubb & Kasiva summarise the notification, and they already differ on whether interest is “up to” or “flat” 12%. The gazette text is the authority.
• Your bye-laws still matter where the Rules are silent. A revised draft of the model bye-laws was put out for comment in 2026; if finalised, details and settings may change.
• This applies only to co-operative housing societies registered in Maharashtra.
• Some data may not exist. Tap counts per sanctioned plan and certified construction costs may be missing for older buildings. How to bill in the meantime is a question for your adviser, not a software setting.
• GST is unsettled. The CBIC circular and the Madras High Court disagree on whether tax applies to the whole amount or the excess. Configure GST on your CA’s advice, not this post.
• Software does not fix a missing resolution. No setting makes an unapproved head valid.

Billing setup checklist

The society still billing from its ten-year-old Excel sheet is not breaking the rules on purpose. It just has not turned the rules into settings yet. Clean flat data, one head per line and one parallel run are usually all it takes to get every bill onto the right basis.