Left in a lurch after compensation award
NST 07/07/2004
FORTY-TWO buyers of medium-cost condominiums at Taman Fadason,
Jinjang Utara want Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri
Ong Ka Ting to personally handle their problems.
He has been given until Saturday to resolve the matter.
The buyers want Ong to take action against the developer, Fadason
Holdings Sdn Bhd, and get them to deliver the compensation for late
delivery between RM1,000 and RM4,000 due to them.
This, despite being awarded compensation by the Housing Tribunal.
Instead, they have been taken to court by Fadason on two grounds.One
is the manner of calculation on liquidated ascertained damages (LAD)
claims by the housebuyers for late delivery, which does not reflect
what is said in the Sales and Purchase agreement.
The tribunal said the calculations for LAD should start from the
date the purchaser paid the deposit and not the date the agreement
was signed. Second, the purchaser should get consent from their
banks before
initiating action in any court or tribunal, because when they signed
the deeds of assignment for a bank loan, they assigned the bank
their rights to recover or take any action.
Therefore, Fadason said, the buyers had no locus standi. MCA Kepong
public service and government affairs bureau chairman Yee Poh Ping
said the developer had found excuses to delay the payment.
He said when the buyers attended the court for mention of the case
on June 28, none of the representatives from the Attorney-General,
the tribunal or the ministry were present.
"Because of their absence, the case had been postponed to Sept 29.
We want an explanation for this," he said during a meeting with the
buyers at Taman Fadason on Sunday. Yee also urged the ministry to
amend the contents of the tribunal in order to protect the interests
of individual housebuyers.
He said the contents did not complement its motto "Easy, Cheap and
Fast" (Mudah, Murah dan Cepat).
He said the tribunal washed its hands off the case after awarding
the compensation to the buyers. He added that it did not have the
right to enforce the award. Instead, the buyers have to enforce the
award
themselves or hire a lawyer to do so.
"This has caused them hardship, it is time consuming and costly."
Yee said these problems had caused a majority of the buyers to
withdraw their cases from the tribunal and accept the developer's
offer. Yee also questioned the ministry's enforcement division for
not acting
against the developer who had defied the tribunal and the ministry's
ruling.
Yee's frustration was echoed by two buyers businessman K.H. Chia,
49, and sales manager Chia Kim Huat, 42. Chia said the developer
owed RM4,800 in compensation where the payments should have been
made in two instalments in March and April, but did not do so.
"Now the developer is taking me and 41 other buyers to court," he
said, adding that he did not have the money to hire a lawyer to
handle the case and hoped the ministry would appoint one for them.
Kim Huat said he had wasted much time going through the process with
the tribunal, but the matter was not resolved.
"The tribunal should help to make it easy for us to claim what is
due to us. But it is not doing so." |
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