After losing thousands, buyers lodge report against minister, developer

Seven owners of the Taman Perdana Raya Karak housing project lodge police reports against Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and developer I Prima Development Sdn Bhd. They are demanding that Liow live up to his promise to get the developer to return all their money after the project was deemed unfit for occupancy. – The Malaysian Insider pic, April 18, 2015.

A group of home buyers who lost thousands of ringgit buying houses in Karak, Pahang, that are not fit to occupy now want a federal minister to fulfil his promise to get their money back.

Owners of the Taman Perdana Raya Karak apartment units, some of whom are facing bankruptcy as result of the soured deal, said Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai had sided with the project’s developer.

Parti Sosialis Malaysia activist Suresh Kumar said the houses were completed in 2009 but were so shoddily built that they were declared not fit for occupancy by the local authority.

Suresh said that in 2011 Liow promised the house owners that the developer, I Prima Development Sdn Bhd, would pay back all the money that had been collected from them.

This includes all instalments to the bank and between RM10,000 and RM25,000 in deposits, legal and furnishing fees that the (30) buyers had paid to I Prima Development.

Suresh said Liow had made promises to the buyers in his capacity as Bentong MP during a December 2011 meeting which included officers from the Bentong Municipal Council.

These demands were included in a police report lodged by seven of the buyers today at the Karak police station.

The seven also lodged a separate police report against I Prima Development, four other companies related to it and 25 individuals who were connected to them.

The report claimed that these 25 individuals had lied to the buyers by taking their deposit money for the houses. Their money was never returned even after the housing project was not completed.

The companies are SP Smart Group Sdn Bhd (which is formerly known as I Prima Development), Intiprima Management Sdn Bhd and Prima Holdings Sdn Bhd (the parent company of I Prima Development) and  Puncak Properties Sdn Bhd (the landowner).

“We want Datuk Seri Liow who in the past had been proactive in helping the developer, to now help the house buyers of Taman Perdana Raya Karak,” Suresh said in a press statement after lodging the report.

“In the December 2011 meeting, Liow had made promises on behalf of the developer.

“We want the Bentong MP to not just become a corporate messenger but to resolve the problems of those who voted for him as MP,” said Suresh, who is Cameron Highlands PSM secretary.

The plight of the home owners began in 2003, when they signed sales and purchase agreements with the developer and paid up deposits for a unit that cost between RM60,000 and RM70,000.

The buyers had also taken out loans for the houses, Suresh said.

About two years later construction stalled and after much protest by owners, building was resumed in 2007 and in 2009, the houses were completed.

“The problem was that the houses were not built according to specification and to what was agreed upon.

“The local authority also declared that the houses were unfit for occupancy. There were 26 offences under the building code and the council refused to issue a certificate of fitness.”

Among the major defects, Suresh claimed, were that all rooms did not have uniform sizes, that substandard construction material was used and that the building did not have a proper water piping system.

“The apartment remains empty till this day because no one wants to live in them.”

In 2011, Liow arranged a meeting between owners and local authority officials to discuss ways to resolve the problem.

“The developer was not there but Liow spoke on their behalf. He told the owners that the company would return all the fees and money used to service the loans they took.”

Suresh said in one case a bank had started proceedings to declare one of buyers bankrupt because the buyer could not afford to service the loan he had taken.

“He could not live in the house and he was forced to take out another loan to buy another house. But he had to keep servicing the (Taman Perdana Raya Karak) loan.”

Suresh said almost all of the owners were middle to low-income earners.

- TMI