Press Statement PS060903JR

PRESS RELEASE

PS060903JR
For Release 5 September 2003

PRESS STATEMENT ON LANDMARK JUDICIAL REVIEW OF HOUSING TRIBUNAL BY NATIONAL HOUSE BUYERS ASSOCIATION [HBA]

It is a shock that the Court has allowed the developers for a judicial review and thus resulting in the Awards granted by the Housing Tribunal to be quashed on the ground of invalid and void and of no effect; those pending claims at the Tribunal to be prohibited and dismissed too. We see the set back of the Tribunal for Home Buyer Claims. This could only be seen as a retrogressive step for the protection of house buyers.

It was the house buyers increasing complaints that prompted the making of new laws, one of which was the establishment of the Tribunal for Home Buyer Claims. To now deny them the accessibility to the Tribunal, is deemed to be a frustration to the aggrieved house buyers who prompted the amendments to the law, and to deny them would be grossly unjust.

If the Tribunal is only accessible to house buyers who signed their sale and purchase agreement on or after 1 December 2002, then we can guess it will not see much action until problems surface with SPA signed after its set-up. Please be mindful that a majority of the complaints only crop up after the schedule date of completion; that is either 24 or 36 months.

In the meantime, there are thousands of aggrieved house buyers who are now unable to seek redress through the Tribunal due to financial constraints after having expending their savings on their house purchase. This group faces high hopes on the Tribunal to hear their cases. Now that they have been denied, we urge the Ministry of Housing to amend the amended law to give it certainty in expressed words evincing that the relevant provisions are to have retrospective effect and to accept all cases irregardless of when the sale and purchase agreement was signed.

Let fair play & justice prevail.

Chang Kim Loong
Secretary General
National House Buyers Association