No claim on strata titles by house owners

There is a trend whereby the property owners of the high rise apartment units
refuse to accept the strata title mainly due to house buyers refusing to pay stamp
duty on their units while many had failed to settle outstanding maintenance fees,
according to the Deputy Land and Co-operative Development Minister Dr Tan Kee Kwong.

"The ministry had received more of such complaints from developers, which was quite
worrisome", said Dr Tan. "Some buyers had even tried to get the person who had
proposed to buy their units to settle the stamp duty."

The stamp duty is based on the property value, 1% for first RM100,000 and additional 2%
for the remaining value of the units.

Most of the property developers would insist that buyers settle all outstanding payments,
including stamp duty, maintenance fees, quit rent and legal fees before handing over
the strata titles to them, and if house buyers did not accept their strata title within six
to eight months after it had been issued to the developer, it would send back to the state
Land and Mines Department.

According Dr. Tan, the Housing and Local Government Ministry and his ministry have
set up a joint working committee to solve the problems related to high-rise buildings
and hope the new committee would settle problems between developers, house
buyers and the authorities up to 30 and 40 cases a year.