’Stop harassing flat buyers’
11/02/2008 New Straits Times By Alina Simon

KOTA BARU: The land administrator of the Taman Bahagia flats, in Jalan Tanjung Chat, was ordered by the High Court to stop harassing and threatening the owners and tenants to get them to pay him rent. A group of 50 flat owners filed for an injunction against the 49-year-old son of the late developer and landowner on Jan 27.

In their affidavit, the 50 buyers claimed their flats were bought in 1975 under a 15-year hire purchase deal from landowner-developer Datuk Abdullah Sulaiman through his company, Bahagia Housing Estate.

The buyers, all of them now in their late 50s to 80s, said they had paid deposits of RM10,000 to RM16,000 and a monthly rental of RM68 to RM120 to the developer until 1993, after the 15 years had elapsed.

They said two years ago, Abdullah’s son, Azali, who was appointed administrator to his father’s estate when he died in the late 1980s, began to badger them to continue their rental payments.

They said Azali used intimidation to harass the occupants and tenants into paying and they had lodged several police reports against him.

They also said they were unable to get the strata titles for their properties as the two five-storey blocks of flats, with 150 two-bedroom units, were built on Malay reserve land.

Judge Datuk Mohd Azman Husin, who heard the case in chambers, also ordered Azali to give a written undertaking that he would not dispose of the land until the matter was settled.

He fixed hearing on March 2 to allow the group’s lawyer to respond to Azali’s affidavit submitted during yesterday’s hearing.

After the hearing, Taman Bahagia Flat Buyer’s pro-tem committee chairman Lua Kim Leong said they had been pushing Abdullah and his business partner, former Kota Lama state assemblyman Datuk Foo Chow Yong, who also died in the 1980s, for the individual strata titles on the property since 1980.

“Both kept asking us to wait as they were waiting for the state government’s approval.

“But now that both are dead, we have no one to turn to. We each paid between RM15,000 and RM24,000 for these units, and we have lived there for the past 32 years.”