/// Contributor
Chris Tan
Lawyer Specialising in
Real Estate
Chris Tan is the founder and now
Managing Partner of Chur Associates,
a boutique legal practice that thrives
in delivering business friendly solutions
for its clients and having a niche
positioning of ‘Everything Real Estate’
serving the entire value chain from
the upstream to the downstream.
Chur Associates is a boutique legal
firm founded in 2004, specialising in
designing legal solutions catered to
our clients’ needs. Chur Associates’s
brand promise is “We Deliver!” To that
end, they offer clientsthe necessary
means and methods to ensure their
requirements are met.
Trending Up Legally
in View of The Property Boom
in Malaysia (Part 1)
T
hese days, it is easy to detect a smile on those who have invested in real estate for the past 5 to 10
years. The low investment that they have invested has brought these investors handsome returns
and such sweet after taste has led them to ask for more. It becomes even obvious when real estate
investment seems to be a hot topic for social gatherings among friends and family.
Beyond Kuala Lumpur, the list of property hotspots in Malaysia has expanded to cover the Greater Kuala
Lumpur (thanks to the MRT and the ongoing highways connections as well as the spillover of the city
center), Penang (on both sides of the sea connected by the old and new bridges and possibly an undersea
tunnel to the North), Iskandar Malaysia (the obvious influx of foreign interests with theme parks and
filming industry as well as the link to the Singapore), Kota Kinabalu (for its well established international
flight connection network and its rich tourism resources) to even places like Melaka and Greater Johor
given the potential stops in the route of the High Speed Rail from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.
From the above, it’s safe to say that your money is quite safe with real estate and more money will be
flowing into this sector as the Country’s last push towards a developed status in 2020, notwithstanding all
the cooling off measures introduced and to be introduced in this common journey. Given such destiny,
we observe some new dealing patterns trending up in the process of buying and selling of real estate and
along with it some much needed clarifications.
You can get in touch with him at
Facebook: Chur Associates
Email: [email protected]
Trend No. 1: Trading of Real Estate as a Commodity while
leveraging on the Bank’s financing
Not every investor takes the effort to understand what real estate is all about. The simple strategy is to
pay a low down payment with the help of discount and rebate thrown in by the developer as well as the
ready leveraging and then looking for a buyer to sell as soon as the property is ready. The details are not
relevant to them for as long as there is money to be made. Wastage normally happened when there is
abundance. However, as the road forward is getting more challenging, keeping your bottom line intact is
important.
Most of the time, this happened in the secondary sale in the market when there are banks involved on
both ends. The complexity of the property redemption process from the bank seems to be beyond the
logic comprehension of the transacting parties.
Payment of the balance purchase price to redeem the property from the Seller’s bank is as good
as payment to the Seller. Therefore, the Seller cannot claim for any late payment interests on the
redemption sum paid in the event that the transaction cannot complete in time.
Similarly, payment to the Seller’s solicitors of the differential sum between the balance purchase price
and the loan amount procured by the Buyer is as good as payment to the Seller. Therefore, Seller has no
claim of late payment interests in the said differential sum is it has already been placed with the Seller’s
solicitors.
While the author makes reasonable
efforts to present information which
he believes to be reliable, the author
makes no representation that the
information or opinions contained in
this article is accurate and complete.
Readers are advised to seek specific
professional advice before acting on
the views.
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www.PropertyHunter.com.my
Based on the above together with the unique practices of the respective banks, the Seller has always
been left wondering about payment while it could actually been paid but pending release due to some
technicalities yet to be complied with.