Family hopes Court of Appeal will save 106-year-old house from demolition

 A stay application has been filed with the Court of Appeal after the High Court rejected a previous application against the demolition order.

The bungalow was built in 1920 by Berjuntai Tin Dredging Bhd, which held a mining lease for the area at the time. (File pic)

PETALING JAYA:

A family in Rawang fighting to save their 106-year-old bungalow is hoping the Court of Appeal will come to their rescue after the Shah Alam High Court set Aug 18 as the date for the house’s demolition.

The Shah Alam High Court rejected a stay application against the demolition order on Aug 11, prompting the family to take the matter to the Court of Appeal.

Maljindar Singh Sidhu Brar, known as Jimmy, said he had also filed a certificate of urgency.

“The reason I’m so adamant is that this house is my family home. We’ve been residing here for the past 65 years,” he told FMT of the Sino-Malay-Palladian house.

Jimmy said his lawyer informed him that the Court of Appeal had set Aug 18 to hear the appeal, the same day the house was scheduled to be demolished.

The house is currently occupied by Jimmy, his mother, wife, and their two children. Jimmy, who runs a transport business, said the family had applied seven times to acquire the land.

“Each time, they tell us that the area has already been taken up under a mining lease and to reapply when the lease expires,” he said.

In his last correspondence with the Selangor land and mines registry, Jimmy learned that the lease was set to expire at the end of 2025.

However, at the beginning of 2025, his family learnt that the lease had been renewed for another 20 years, extending until the end of 2045.

“When we asked them what would happen to our attempts at alienation, they went silent. It’s not that we haven’t been going through the proper channels to get our property alienated. We’ve been doing this since 1962,” he said.

The bungalow was built in 1920 by Berjuntai Tin Dredging Bhd, which held a mining lease for the area at the time.

In 1959, the company sold the property to its employee Pologa Nathan, who later sold it to Jimmy’s grandmother, Gurtha Kaur.

According to earlier news reports, the family first applied in 1967 to the Kuala Kubu Bharu land office, later renamed the Gombak land office, to acquire the land but did not receive a reply.

Jimmy said Gurtha transferred her interest in the property to the family in 1989 by way of a deed of assignment. However, he said the mining lease for the land had already been granted to two cement manufacturers by then.

FMT has contacted the Selangor land and mines registry for comment. - FMT