Amendments to Housing Development ACT: An Act of betrayal!

by drrafick

• It took me 5 days to get the Housing Development Bill (Amendments 2011) since it was presented for the first hearing in the parliament. I had to seek assistance from KPKT, officers at Parliament and YB Zuraida Kamaruddin. Upon seeing it, I felt numb with the feeling of being betrayed by the government. I was told that it took many people in the government and HBA 2^1/2 years to firm up the changes. It only proves that there are many hidden hands at play and the limited intellectual capacity of many of our government servants. Can you blame the house buyers if they have the perception that government is at the mercy of the developers?

• In Malaysia, developers build houses and make tons of profit using house buyer’s money and yet the law did not accord adequate protection to house buyers. The changes gave a cosmetic assurance rather than protection. It created a law that restricts the power of the government in taking action on the developer and made it difficult for the government to prosecute anyone. At the same it gave a useless right to the purchaser to terminate their agreement if a project is abandoned. What’s the point of terminating when the government cannot guarantee that it can ensure that the developer will refund the monies paid to them?

• Upon the registration of the association, VICTIMS Malaysia, we requested participation in the committee that is reviewing the law. Our request was turn down on simply the basis that National HBA has represented the house buyers. Who is National HBA? How many members do they have? Despite that we pushed on our proposal directly and indirectly via all available avenues. Nothing was considered. If any we got one consolation prize that apparently the Ministry agrees to our proposal to allow the contra of LAD against progress payment and that will be incorporate in the new regulation.

• My expectation is that the amendments to the ACT should reward good developers and will come down hard on rogue developers who failed to complete the houses within the SPA period. They will empower the Ministry to assist abandon house buyers to get their rights under the SPA. That did not happen. What it did is that it created more bureaucracy and makes it difficult for house buyers to get what is due to them. I am for one is extremely displeased. Obviously in this case “Rakyat tidak didahulukan” or “People NOT First”. I wonder who is first!

The amendments D.R 36/2011 : HERE

Current HDA (ACT 118): HERE