A blow to condo living
04/02/2006 The Star

THE Government recently announced that it would impose stricter penalties on owners of apartments and condominiums who defaulted on their monthly service fees.

As a condominium owner, I fully agree with and support the Government’s action on such owners.

After all, we as residents of condominiums and apartments must understand that the service fees are meant for the upkeep of the condominiums and apartments.

The companies appointed to manage the apartments and condominiums must also play their part in ensuring that the residents have a clean, pleasant, safe and peaceful environment to live in.

However, the sad thing is that many of our apartments and condominiums have been turned into serviced apartments for holidaymakers.

We have invested a lot of money to enjoy the luxury of living in an apartment or condominium.

For many of us, this is our only home.

Unfortunately, greedy speculators have bought up these apartment units with the hope of selling them at a profit later.

When they are unable to get a good price for their units, they turn into greedy operators and rent out these units to holidaymakers.

Unlike us residents who look on our condominiums and apartments as our home, these holidaymakers have no such regard whatsoever.

They clearly violate all the house rules day in and day out.

To make matters worse, hotels, factories and construction firms have rented many of these apartment and condominium units for their workers who, together with the holidaymakers, have turned our common home into a slum.

I hope the authorities will do something to stop this practice of turning private residential apartments and condominiums into commercial serviced apartments.

MAUNG C. BURKE, Penang.