No escaping maintenance charges
15/04/2007 Sunday Times

KUALA LUMPUR: Settle your maintenance charges or risk having your assets sealed.

Owners and tenants of units in high-rise buildings such as condominiums, office buildings and shopping centres were given this warning yesterday by the secretary-general of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Datuk Ahmad Fuad Ismail.

He said the Building and Common Property (Maintenance and Management) Act 2007, or Act 663, which was enforced yesterday provided for such action.

"Previously, developers were faced with the problem of buyers or tenants refusing to pay the maintenance charges because there was no law which specified action that could be taken," he said.

He said this in a working paper entitled "Implementation of the Building and Common Property (Maintenance and Management) Act 2007 to Tackle the Problems of Maintaining and Managing Buildings and Common properties."

The working paper was tabled at the Conference on Enhancing the Government Delivery System and Services here yesterday.

The assets would be sealed if the Commissioner of Buildings (COB) appointed by the state governments gave the permission after receiving an application from the developer of a building, he said.

Meanwhile, director-general of the Peninsular Malaysia Town and Country Planning Department, Datuk Mohd Fadzil Mohd Khir, proposed that approval for applications for land development be shortened to four months.

"Priority should also be given to high-impact projects such as those involving foreign investors," he said in his working paper entitled "Enhancement of the Delivery System for Procedures and Processes as well as the Implementation of One-Stop-Centre for Development Proposals".

He said applications for land development now took about a year to process. — Bernama