Housing Development Act to be gazetted on Feb 1

The Star 07/11/2002

Kuala Lumpur: The Government will gazette the recently passed Housing Development Act on Feb 1.

In announcing this, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting hoped that all developers would follow the new regulations and refrain from their old habits of exploiting loopholes for their own benefit.

"Besides protecting the buyers' rights, this Act will also ensure that developers will not lose out too much," he said after flagging-off a charity run here yesterday.

Ong added that with the new regulations, developers who were not professional enough would not be allowed to take on any project until they were ready for that responsibility.

"Those not capable of completing a project or found to have built low-quality houses in the past, will not be allowed to take on projects in the future as we have to think of the buyers' interests," he said.

Tabled and passed in Parliament in October, the Act is an amendment to the Housing Developers (Control and Licensing) Act 1966.

It will officially take on its new name of Housing Development Act once the gazetting process is completed by the end of this month.

Among the amendments included in the Act are the setting up of a house buyers' tribunal, a tighter criteria for the issuance of licences, an increase in deposits for housing developer licence applications and harsher fines for various offences.

The amended Act also allows the termination of the sale and purchase agreement for projects not built within six months of the launch or if  75% of the buyers agree with the developer to end it.