By Karen Bong
KUCHING, Sept 15: A developer was today ordered by the Sarawak Housing Purchaser Claims Tribunal to pay a total of RM13,590.06 to a house buyer for the late delivery of property for 649 days to date.
Tribunal president Robert Elone Sireng also instructed the developer to pay claimant Yusmila Sapiee for the damages for late delivery, which is known as Liquidated Ascertained Damages (LAD), until utilities were provided to the property.
“This project near Samariang was supposed to be completed and handed over to house buyers a long time ago but utilities supply have yet to be connected.
“So for today, the developer is ordered to make payment for damages from Oct 12, 2018 until today with 55 days deducted due to Movement Control Order (MCO) period (March 18-May 18),” he told reporters after the Tribunal heard and delivered decisions for four cases today.
The developer informed the court that they were in the final stage of getting the utilities and promised to deliver them hopefully by end of this month or early October as there were a lot of cases involving buyers from the housing area.
Besides LAD and utilities supply, Yusmila, who bought a single-storey corner terrace house somewhere in Samariang, had also claimed for defects to be rectified.
The Tribunal thus proposed that its engineers, the developer and the buyer carry out a joint inspection of the property to come up with an agreed defects list which will be used as a basis for the developer to fix them.
“Once the letter of award is issued, the developer will have to fix the defects within 45 days,” Robert added.
As for the other cases involving three claimants from an apartment residence project in Matang, the developer has been ordered to fix all defects within 45 days once a letter of award was issued.
The claimants – Shoon Chong Jon, Soon Chong Teck and Kong Chai Ying – have put forward in court a long list of defects which needed to be rectified, including leaky roof, water seeping into walls, flooded balcony during rain and low water pressure.
Robert explained that the main problem facing the three claimants whose units were all on the top floor, was leaking and low water pressure.
“We asked that the developer look at the roof to see if there is any leak and rectify the problem, as well as improving water pressure for the three units as the water tank is just above the units.
“As for problems with the balcony, it could be due to the down pipe being insufficient or unable to drain water so they need to check that. But it is pretty obvious they need to put awnings but since it is not part of the approved plan so the owners may have to install themselves,” he said.
Robert pointed out that it was expected of developers to provide and meet requirements of the buyers.
“Our engineers will monitor the rectification of the defects and also suggest methods to deal with the leaks as well,” he added. — DayakDaily
