Datuk Seri Panglima Hajiji Mohd Noor
KOTA KINABALU: Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Hajiji Mohd Noor disclosed that the state cabinet had given its green light and had asked the Legal Department to look into amending the law to accelerate the issuance of strata titles.
“The cabinet has agreed and asked the Legal Department to study and to revise the relevant law which will enable faster issuance of strata titles.
“Once this stage is done, we will bring up the matter to the state assembly to be approved,” he told the media at a luncheon talk, in conjunction with the state-level National Day celebration here, yesterday.
He said the current law stated that strata titles would only be issued upon completion of all phases of development and after the developers had paid all premium payments to the Land and Survey Department.
This, said Hajiji, caused house buyers to have to wait for a long time to have strata titles issued to them
“So maybe it needs to be amended to allow the process of issuing strata titles to start as soon as a unit had obtained its OC,” he said.
Hajiji said that accelerating the issuance of strata titles would involve other matters, including building by-laws and management corporation.
Hence, a time frame as to when the matter will be settled is yet to be ascertained, depending on the Legal Department’s findings.
“We do hope it can be finalized by the end of this year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hajiji said he would leave it to the court to settle the 1Sulaman project dispute before his ministry takes the next course of action.
“I was made to understand that the project developer is appealing to the court. So let’s wait for the court’s decision before we decide what to do next,” he said.
The 1Sulaman project started in 2009 and was supposed to have completed in 2012 with vacant possession to the buyers. However, the project almost came to a stop since year 2011 with only 80 per cent complete and the two blocks about 30 per cent into the work progress.
Many of the purchasers are first-time home buyers and have been paying the loans to the bank pending completion of the project even before moving into their units.