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Fairness for
house buyers
03/12/2010 The Star By LESTER KONG
The local government and Housing Ministry are pursuing ways to reduce the
number of abandoned projects and to create a mechanism for housing
delivery.
The Local Government and Housing Ministry has emb arked on creating a new
mechanism for housing delivery to ensure the fair treatment of house
buyers.
It is also pursuing various means to reduce the number of abandoned
housing projects that continue to plague house buyers and their banks.
“The Ministry holds the main role as the facilitator or the mediator to
settle and supervise efforts in rehabilitating and negotiating between all
interested parties.
“They include the house buyers, land owners, developers and liquidators in
the objective of finding the best way forward to rehabilitate abandoned
housing projects,” said Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha in an interview.
At the moment, he said the Ministry had identified 30,567 house buyers
that are in need of help to revive the properties that they have paid for,
either in terms of down payment or were currently servicing the interest
of their loans.
The number makes up the buyers of 136 housing projects that have been
currently classified by the Ministry as abandoned throughout the country.
“It must be noted that these 136 projects account for about less than 2%
of the total housing development in the country.
“Nonetheless the stress impact of it upon the people and the national
economy runs deep,” he said.
There were three main types of housing projects that faced problems:
‘Delayed’, ‘Ailing’ and ‘Aban doned’.
According to Kong, housing projects that have been placed in the Delayed
category were often buildings that were behind the schedule that was first
presented when the developer was applying for the Housing Developers
License.
These delays usually fall between 10-30% of the schedule as stipulated in
the Sale and Purchase Agreement (S&P).
‘Ailing’ housing projects often face issues such as land problems or
disputes, human resource problems and a disturbance in the sourcing of
building materials for the project.
These projects often fall more than 30% behind schedule.
‘Abandoned’ projects are those that are not completed within the
stipulated period for the first Sale and Purchase Agreement (S&P).
“The S&P is to protect house buyers by ensuring the developers keep to the
time frame for delivery of the unit to the buyer. Normal properties such
as houses with individual titles must be delivered within 24 months of
signing the S&P and 36 months for subdivided buildings with strata
titles,” he said.
Abandoned projects fall under three categories:
> Projects that had seen no substantial activity on-site for six
consecutive months
> Projects involved in a winding-up petition registered at the High Court
under Section 218 of the Companies Act, or
> The developer informing the controller in writing of his inability to
complete the project or the project has been certified to be abandoned by
the Minister under Section 11(1)(ca) of Act5 118.
According to Kong, there are various factors that cause housing projects
to be abandoned such as cash flow problems, inaccurate market research and
study, technical problems and mismanagement in the company.
The Ministry as the main mediating body has successfully revived through
various means 12 abandoned housing project in the country out of a total
of 148 abandoned projects throughout the country.
Another 46 housing projects were in various stages of being revived, he
added.
He added that the revival of housing projects that the Ministry was
helping to mediate did not involve any Government expenditure.
“The government is pursuing multiple ways in a citizen-centric approach to
resolve the issue of housing projects that fail to complete.
One of the recent steps taken by the Government in its efforts to help
revive these housing projects was to establish the Special Task Force (STF)
to Revive Abandoned Housing Pro jects.
“The STF aims to draw together various sectors of the housing industry to
generate ideas, approaches and strategies that will hopefully accomplish
quantum leap improvements of the local housing delivery system,” Kong
said.
He said various players of the housing development industry had to get
involved to help revive abandoned projects.
“The Government is not the sole agency that is needed to help resolve
abandoned housing issues.
“It is a long process to resolve abandoned housing projects because it
involves so many players of the industry,” he said.
Other players included the developers, the buyers, the banks and financial
institutions, which made up the core players of the issue.
“All of them are needed in untangling the legal matters that arise from
even a single abandoned housing project.
“It takes a lot of effort for the Ministry to be the mediating body
between all these players. When it comes to legal battles between the
various parties, it also involves costs in a long drawn out process,” he
said.
Sometimes, the land owners will also be needed to help bring resolution to
why the project has become abandoned, he said.
“It takes a lot of compromise and give-and-take between the parties to
successfully revive a project,” he said.
For example, Kong said the Ministry’s task force had to convince house
buyers in certain projects not to pursue with their claims for late
delivery.
When a project is not delivered on schedule, the house buyers typically
could claim a certain amount from the developer to compensate for the
housing loan repayments that they had paid without being delivered the
property.
He said in other instances, the banks were also persuaded to waive the
interest charges for loans that were taken out for abandoned projects.
‘White knights’ or a new and more financially-capable developer would be
the main method of ensuring that the abandoned project gets built
to completion but they would also need to be convinced of the project’s
viability and may make changes to the building plans and its
infrastructure, Kong said.
The Ministry also studying various ways to improve the housing delivery
system.
The new mechanism for housing delivery is an adjustment in the Schedule of
Payment of Purchase Price which details the items of installment and their
percentage and amount payable, said Kong.
“Under this schedule of payment buyers have to pay 80% of the purchase
price before the completion of their homes,” Kong pointed out.
He said under the new schedule, the property developer would not find it
worth their while to abandon a nearly completed project as there would
still be a substantial payment to be received, unlike under the current
schedule.
CURRENT PAYMENT SCHEDULE FOR HOUSEBUYERS
> Upon signing of SPA: 10% Progressively payment for foundation: 10%
> Structural frame work: 15%
> Walls with doors and window frames placed in position: 10%
> Roofing, electrical wiring, plumbing (without fittings) gas piping and
internal trunking and cabling: 10%
> Internal and external finishes including wall finishes: 10%
> Sewerage works serving building: 5%
> Drains: 5%
> Roads: 5% |
