MP to help flat owners obtain their strata titles

The Star 24/1/2006

RESIDENTS of the Setapak Indah Jaya flats are fed up of the badly maintained state of their flats.

The conditions there has deteriorated ever since the management office closed down late last year.

The residents would like to take on the maintenance of the flats themselves. However, the only drawback is they have yet to receive their strata titles.

Wangsa Maju MP Yew Teong Look said he would help the residents obtain their strata titles with helpd from the Housing and Local Government Ministry.

He said he would also organise a meeting between the developer, management office, residents, City Hall, Tenaga Nasional Bhd, Syabas and Housing and Local Government Ministry after Chinese New Year on ways to improve living conditions there.

Yew, who attended a gotong-royong at the flats on Sunday, also pledged to set aside part of his allocation to repair the area’s fencing and beautify the field.

Most of the 2,500 residents moved into the three blocks, consisting of 504 units, in 1998. About 80% of them are Chinese. It was learned that the developer ran away in 2000 and its management office at the flats operated until late last year.

Occupants had to climb the staircases to their homes since September when lifts in all the blocks broke down. The residents' committee then collected RM500 from each unit for the repairs. Two lifts in Block 17 were finally back in order in the middle of this month and the four others are expected to be ready by March.

Residents' committee chairman Soon Chai Hock said repairing the lifts cost RM200,000.

“Each unit is required to pay RM40 per month. Some have not been paying for two years. We have yet to collect maintenance fee amounting to RM160,000,” said Soon.

On the other hand, he added, the flats still owed TNB RM92,000 and Syabas RM72,000, even after they had paid RM31,000 to both companies for their December usage.

About 200 occupants took part in the gotong-royong, while City Hall sent their workers, two trucks and one bulldozer to help out.

They cleared the heaps of rubbish in front of the blocks, worsened by outsiders conveniently dumping bulky waste there. Fogging was carried out in the evening to prevent dengue.