Strata title limbo: High Court rules developer must pay, speed up application

This article appeared in the May 12, 2026 issue of the monthly print edition. Subscribe now.

Picture this: you bought your apartment unit over 30 years ago. You have paid off your loan, kept up your maintenance fees, and played by every rule. Yet today, you still do not hold a strata title in your own name.

Your developer has simply not gotten around to completing it.

This is not a hypothetical situation. In a case decided by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Feb 9, a joint management body (JMB) took its developer to court after decades of inaction on strata title delivery. It was ruled emphatically in the homeowners’ favour — ordering the developer to pay the outstanding land premiums and complete the subdivision application. The case, reported as JMB Tasik Heights Apartment vs ASM Development Sdn Bhd [2026] CLJU 280, is a recent ruling that every strata property owner in Malaysia should know about.

What happened in this case?

Apartments in a residential project were sold in 1992 under the standard Schedule H sale and purchase agreement (SPA). The developer was the registered owner of the master title and was legally obliged to subdivide it so that separate strata titles could be issued to each buyer.

Fast forward to 2008 — the JMB took over management of the building and discovered the titles had still not been obtained. The reason? The developer had failed to pay the premiums required by the land office as a condition of approving the subdivision. The JMB spent years writing to the developer and the land office. The developer was granted extension after extension: September 2021, January 2022, October 2022 (with a Covid-19 concession), and finally December 2022. Every deadline passed. The premiums were never paid.

In December 2022, the JMB issued a formal demand. In October 2023, it filed an originating summons in the High Court. In February this year, the court ruled: the developer must pay up, and it must complete the strata title process.

Arguments used by developer that were rejected

 In defending the case, the developer raised several arguments. The court rejected every one of them.

“We are waiting for the land office to process our application.”
The land office cannot process a subdivision application until the developer pays the required premiums, and submits all prescribed documents. If the developer has not paid or completed all the required steps, it cannot blame the land office.

“We need more time because of financial difficulties.”
Financial difficulties do not extinguish statutory obligations. Section 8(1) of the Strata Titles Act 1985 (STA) places a clear positive duty on the original landowner — who has sold parcels — to apply for subdivision within prescribed time limits. That duty exists by statute, not just under the SPA. A developer’s cash flow problems are between it and its creditors, not a reason to deprive homeowners of their titles indefinitely.

“The JMB has no standing to sue — only individual purchasers can.”
The court rejected this decisively. The JMB was not suing for breach of the sale contract — it was enforcing a statutory duty. Under Sections 21(1) and 21(2) of the Strata Management Act 2013 (SMA), the JMB is empowered to do all things necessary to properly maintain and manage the building. It cannot do this without strata subdivision. And Section 143(2)(a) of the SMA expressly allows the JMB to take proceedings concerning common property as if it were the parcel owners themselves.

 “The JMB needs signed consent from every owner before it can file suit.”
Section 143(2)(a) of the SMA requires no such collective mandate. The JMB’s duly authorised representative can act and affirm affidavits on behalf of the community — no stack of individual authorisation letters are needed.

You are not alone — and the law is catching up

Across Malaysia, thousands of strata properties remain without issued titles — some for decades. Causes range from developers lacking funds to pay subdivision premiums, to corporate restructurings, disputed land conditions, and institutional inertia. The human cost falls entirely on the homeowners.

Recently, during a Selangor State Assembly sitting, the State Housing and Culture Committee chairman Datuk Borhan Aman Shah emphasised that action will be taken against errant developers in Selangor who fail to resolve strata title issues. He highlighted that no action had been taken so far against developers in Selangor, but Melaka and Johor had done so, where fines ranging from RM10,000 to RM100,000 were imposed.

The bottom line for homebuyers

This ruling is a clear signal from the Malaysian courts: the obligation to deliver strata titles is statutory. It does not fade with time, and your JMB has real power to enforce it.

Datuk George Miranda is a partner at Miranda & Samuel, with over 30 years of experience in property law. He is the author of “Property Law” (Sweet and Maxwell). His practice covers the full spectrum of property law, acting mainly for property developers, purchasers, landowners, and corporate entities in both contentious and non-contentious matters. He has expertise in land disputes, strata title disputes, liquidated ascertained damages (LAD) claims, defect liability, construction-related disputes, and other property development disputes. He can be contacted at [email protected].

WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW — A HOMEBUYER’S CHECKLIST

a) Ask your JMB: Has the developer filed a strata title application? Has it paid the land office premiums? Your JMB can write to the Pejabat Pengarah Tanah dan Galian (PTG) for your state to get a status update.

b) Issue a written demand: Through your JMB or personally, send a formal letter to your developer requesting a confirmed timeline for strata title completion. This creates an important paper trail.

c) Engage a solicitor: If the developer does not respond or comply, legal action via an originating summons under Section 8 of the STA is available — and your JMB can bring it without obtaining signed consents from every individual owner. As in the JMB Tasik Heights’ case, the court ordered the developer to pay the required premiums for the application for subdivision of the Tasik Puteri apartment building or land and to settle the application for subdivision of the Tasik Puteri apartments into separate strata titles, which will also demarcate the common property for the JMB to maintain and manage them.

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