Over 16,500 complaints filed against housing developers
15/06/2007 The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 16,537 public complaints were filed against housing developers in the past six years for late delivery and violation of sale and purchase agreements.

The number tripled from 1,270 in 2001 to 4,542 last year, while last year's complaints topped the list in the past six years, with an increase of 2,134 complaints from 2005.

Housing and Local Government Ministry monitoring and enforcement director Dr G. Parameswaran said that 1,591 (35%) of last year’s cases had been settled while the remaining cases were being investigated.

“From these cases, 1,225 of the developers were charged with offences like unlicensed development, failing to report and submit changes to plan after obtaining the licence, and not keeping their financial records in order.

“The ministry also issued more than RM1.5mil in compound fines in the past four years,” he said.

Apartment buyer N. Lethchumunan, who is among 2,000 others who have been waiting for nearly three years to occupy apartments in the Sunway area, said: “We were told that a new developer would be taking over to continue with the completion of the apartments.

“Some of us paid more than RM150,000, the bank continues to make the deductions and there is no sign of the apartments being completed. We're lucky the project has not been abandoned,” he said.

Of the 266 housing projects between 1990 and 2006, 158 had been abandoned. Of these, 147 will be revived, eight taken over by another developer and three deemed “not suitable to be revived.”