KOTA KINABALU: The absence of a House Buyers Tribunal has allowed unscrupulous housing developers to take advantage of the weaknesses or loopholes in the existing laws to victimise helpless house buyers.

Touching on the tribunal, Keadilan’s Christina Liew said it is extremely crucial towards protecting the rights and interests of house buyers,

And the best part was, these unscrupulous housing developers are able to get away with it.

Presently, a House Buyers Tribunal like the one set up in Peninsular Malaysia early this year does not exists in the State, due to the fact that the Housing Development Act (Control and Licensing) does not cover Sabah and Sarawak.

She thus urged the Minister concerned not to drag his feet on the setting up of the tribunal, especially citing that there is a provision in the Land Ordinance that empower the relevant minister to do so.

“I’m calling upon the Local Government and Housing Minister, Datuk Salleh Said Keruak, to quickly set up the tribunal as many house buyers are currently suffering because of the absence of one,” she urged.

She noted that since its inception early this year, the House Buyers Tribunal back in Peninsular Malaysia has solved 270 of the 1,713 cases it received, as what has been reported by federal Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting recently.

In addition to this, she also suggested that the scope of such tribunal for Sabah should also include house buyers’ grievances over water, electricity, and sewerage problems.

She also called on the ministry concerned to take stern action on those irresponsible developers who have taken house buyers for a ride.

Liew then said she would make an appointment to see the Minister concerned after this, to find out what are the problems that cause the Ministry to drag its feet “in plugging all the loopholes in the existing laws governing the housing developers.”

“Tomorrow (today) I’m going to fax him a letter for an appointment. I know he is a very busy man, but for the people’s sake, I hope he will give me a small portion of his precious time to discuss about the issue with him,” she said.

Earlier she disclosed that her ‘fact-finding’ trip to the district Land and Surveys Department was prompted by complaints made by the residents of Beverly Hills Apartments Phase 2, located along Jalan Bundusan on Monday night, following a minor commotion over water supply disruption.

A fight nearly ensued between several disgruntled residents and the security personnel of the housing estate when the latter refused to give them the telephone number of the officer in charge of the Temporary Management Corporation.

She noted that the disgruntled residents were fuming over the failure of their Temporary Management Corporation (TMC) in informing them about the water disruption that they were going to face on that day, thus resulting in them failing to store water in advance.

One of the disgruntled residents who was present in the news conference, Chong, later lamented that he went to bed without taking bath because of that.

He also furiously pointed out that the developer had failed to include water tank in the development project.

Meanwhile, Liew also revealed that the Land and Surveys Department has earlier informed her that the Subsidiary Titles’ application for Beverly Hills Apartments Phase 1 & 2 has been approved by the department. – Michael Teh