The developer, which I shall refer to as Selam Bhd, failed to complete our corner lot in Puchong on time. Under the sales and purchase agreement, it had to pay compensation for late delivery.

In our case, that would be about RM6,000. It is a reasonable sum if you take into account the inconvenience the house-buyer has to go through whenever a developer is unable to keep his part of the bargain.

For example, a couple I know (whom I wrote about in this column not too long ago) had to pay rent for the house they lived in as well as the monthly installment for their new house because their developer failed to deliver their house on time.

The woman hired to speak on behalf of Selam said her employers would pay us RM2,000. I asked her why that amount when Selam owed us three times as much?

"Well. if you are not happy, you will have to take it up with the tribunal, in which case you may not even be awarded a single sen. There have been such cases, let me assure you...," she said.

Whoa, is that so? Upset with this woman (who, by the way, told us about the compensation only after we had asked her if the company wasn't obliged to pay in the event of late delivery), I told her we would see her and her employer in court.

And that was how we got to the tribunal, at the Damansara Town Centre in Kuala Lumpur, a little after 8.30 that morning. A notice by order of the Setiausaha pasted on the wall said you must be in your respective chamber by 8.30am and until your case is heard by the tribunal. But I wasn't surprised when we were told that we were "too early".

At 9.15am, a chap with a goatie emerged from Chamber Four and started to call out names. The persons whose names were called were told to enter the chamber, where they would wait for their cases to be mentioned.

Another half an hour went by before a cuff-linked gentleman entered Chamber Two where we were waiting with about a dozen other disgruntled house-buyers. He held up a file as he called out my name. We followed him out to another room.

"My name is Nine (not his real name). Are we prepared for a full settlement?" I had no idea how a tribunal was supposed to be conducted so I had to ask Mr Nine who he was.

"I am the lawyer," he said.  Are you representing us or Selam? "I am Selam's lawyer," he confessed. And you are offering to pay us the RM6,000 your employer owes us? "Yes, but in two instalments." Ah. Suddenly everything became clearer to me.

Firstly, you don't tell your house-buyer about the compensation. Then, you offer the unhappy house-buyer a portion of what is his. If he insists on the full amount, you tell him "see you at the tribunal".

If, after all that trouble, the housebuyer calls your bluff, offer him the full amount. So charming. The Missus was fuming.

She told Mr Nine to pay us our money in full within 30 days. At the hearing, Mr Nine told the tribunal judge, Puan President, about our refusal to the two instalments.

He pleaded with the judge to grant the developer the instalment scheme (payable within 70 days) or the developer's cash-flow would suffer and this would jeopardise its objective of paying other claimants as well as its larger aim of making sure that it continues to have the means to continue with the housing projects it was undertaking.

I could not believe the gall. So when Puan President asked if the claimants had anything to say to that, I stood up and said Selam was such a huge corporation ("otherwise, we would not have invested in its project in the first place, Yang Ariff") and RM6,000 would not cause a dent.

I also told Puan President how Selam's representative had badmouthed and undermined the tribunal. "They said if I were to go before you, I might not get a single sen."

A few minutes later, we were told to rise. The Yang Ariff ordered the developer to pay us the full amount in two instalments but in nearly half the time Selam wanted.

Over teh tarik and roti later, we congratulated ourselves for the moral victory. Selam was no poorer but we did not let their Dirty Tricks Department get away this time. I only wished the tribunal had had ticked Selam off for its scare tactics.

So if a developer dares you to take up your housing woes with the tribunal, call his bluff.