No excuse for housing developers not to sell completed houses

utusan.com.my 02/06/2004

PETALING JAYA June 1 - Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk M Kayveas, has taken to task housing developers for not heeding the Prime Minister's call for them to sell completed houses.

He said there was no excuse for housing developers not to follow the build-and-sell concept as it would prevent the long-standing problem of buyers having to pay for houses they cannot move into.

Besides this, he said that if they followed Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's advice, the problems of house buyers saddled with financial losses due to abandoned projects would not arise.

He chided big companies which set up numerous small companies to undertake projects and whenever they failed, the companies just folded up. These holding companies are not affected and also end up not paying any compensation to the buyers.

These developers either absconded, abandoned their projects or formed new companies and left the buyers in a lurch, he said.

Kayeas also said that unlike the large companies which had the funds and could undertake the build-and sell concept, cash-strapped smaller companies could merge among themselves to build and sell completed houses.

He also suggested that housing developers should sell the houses exactly like the showhouses exhibited to the purchasers.

"In short, when you have a showhouse, that is the house which the buyer should get," he said.

"If you build and sell, everybody gets a similar house," he said.

But if it just a showhouse, there is the possibility that the buyers would not get their houses and when they do, "either the roof is no more there, or the wall is cracking and with lots of problem," he told a media conference here Tuesday. He earlier witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between SK Brothers Realty Sdn Bhd and one of Singapore's largest real estate firms, Propnex Realty Pte Ltd.

The prime minister had recently indicated that housing developers may no longer be allowed to sell houses before they are completed.

Kayveas said the housing problem had long been an outstanding issue, where people take loans and have their salaries deducted, pay interests to the banks, but don't have their houses.

Asked on abandoned projects, Kayveas, who was the former deputy minister for the Housing and Local Government, said that there were cases of abandoned projects, but 50 percent of these cases had been resolved.

Industry players should take the lead before it become a serious thing where the government has to interfere, he said.

He also pointed out that Australia and Thailand practised the build and sell concept for their properties.