Good News for Housebuyers

Strata titles for properties like condominiums, apartments and flats will be issued simultaneously when buyers get their keys under a proposed amendment to the current law.

National House Buyers Association honorary secretary-general Chang Kim Loong said this was among its proposals, which had been approved by the Housing and Local Government Ministry, to be tabled in Parliament by March next year.

“This will prevent errant developers from not applying for strata titles after having received the full amount,” Chang said in an e-mail interview.

He said the Housing Development Act, Strata Title Act and several other Acts must also be amended to help housebuyers who were at a disadvantage under current legislation.

He said the association also proposed that there must be separate individual titles for landed property prior to the developer being granted a license from the Housing and Local Government Ministry.

Recently, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung said that his ministry was working with the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry on amendments to the Building and Common Property Act.

Chor said that it aimed to table the amendments in Parliament by March next year with the goal of detailing the boundaries, roles and responsibilities of strata title owners, property managers and developers so that the rights of home owners could be better protected.

He added that the amendments were needed because they would spell out how home owners could exercise their rights under the Act and how many votes a home owner would have if he or she owned more than one unit in a building.

Commenting on the proposal for vacant possession and strata title to be issued simultaneously, a working executive Y.H. Tee, 35, who bought a condominium in Petaling Jaya two years ago, said it was good that purchasers would officially ‘own’ their properties upon receiving the keys.

Tee said that giving strata titles to housebuyers during vacant possession could prevent cases of developers not bothering to apply for them even after the projects had been completed for many years.