'Rescuers' sought for abandoned projects
30/03/2006 New Straits Times

THE Government is looking for "white knights" to come to the rescue of 149 abandoned housing projects.

Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Azizah Mohd Dun said the ministry was working closely with the 42,706 affected house buyers to find developers who would be willing to complete these projects.

The 149 projects involved 63,894 housing units.

From 1990 to December last year, there had been 260 abandoned housing projects involving 58,685 house buyers and 88,410 units.

Azizah said of that number, 93 projects had been revived and another 10 had been taken over by other developers.

"This means there are only nine projects that cannot be revived because of problems we have identified," she said in reply to a supplementary question from Datuk Badruddin Amiruldin (BN-Jerai), who wanted to know how many house buyers were affected by abandoned housing projects and what action had been taken against the errant developers.

Azizah said companies and their directors who had abandoned their projects or were late in completing them would be blacklisted by the ministry.

As a means to reduce the incidence of abandoned housing projects, the Government was looking at several options, one of which is the "Build Then Sell" concept, she said.

At a Press conference in the Parliament lobby, Azizah said the ministry had completed its research on the concept and would present the findings to the Cabinet next month.

She added that the ministry had received feedback from the House Buyers Association, Real Estate and Housing Developers Association and financial institutions on the "Build Then Sell" concept.

Earlier in the house, Azizah said house buyers affected by abandoned projects could lodge complaints with the Housing Claims Tribunal. So far 16,399 cases had been lodged, with 14,491 resolved.

She was replying to a question from Lau Yeng Peng (BN-Puchong) who then wanted to know what happened when the cases were settled but the house buyers were not compensated.

Azizah said legal action would be taken against the developers who did not pay up what they owed.

"This is considered a criminal case and if found guilty they can be fined up to RM5,000 or jailed for up to two years or both.