News about buyers

In comparing the revised budget and the previous October budget, the honorary secretary-general of HBA Datuk Chang Kim Loong has expressed the association’s support, concern and disappointment on matters relating to the Malaysian property sector.

Developers must provide purchasers with a full set of detailed approved documents of the property in the sale and purchase agreement.

Since 2013, banks have somehow been “selling” and “billing” the security documents to lawyers for prices ranging between RM100 and RM600.

This issue of “vacant possession simultaneously with strata titles” has somehow been delayed these last few years since its inception because of some alleged technical problems.

Condos, apartments, serviced residences – these are becoming popular choices for urbanites, but many are not equipped with the basic knowledge of being a strata property owner.

Talks of the government wanting to promote second-generational loans or dual-generation housing loans are rife, but what is the cost to the rakyat? Doubtless, Malaysia is currently facing a housing crisis where the majority of the rakyat cannot afford to buy their first homes.

HBA notes that further improvements could and should be undertaken by the government, namely to the new pegged fee of RM500 should not only take effect prospectively but retroactively (but not to the extent of making the liquidators refund any “overcharged fees”).

The exploitation by private liquidators – making a fortune from homebuyers’ misfortune – is a double whammy for the victims who are already facing the complications from their defunct property developers.

We crucially need a system to establish the ratio of annual income to house price at 1:3 at the most and not 1:6 as it is now.

All of us are hoping for a brighter future, and for this to happen, we need effective and sustainable policies that are properly thought out and implemented with the rakyat’s interest in mind.