Property Auction #6: Are you bidding on Standard & Chartered Bank's properties?

If you are planning to bid for Standard & Chartered Bank's property (Laca case), always remember to register yourself with their panel agent few days in advanced. The purpose is for the agent to apply for you to waive the maintenance fees, quit rent and assessment owed by the previous owner.

If you do not perform the above, I'm sorry to inform you that you yourself have to bear those costs. In many instances, these figures can amount to more than RM10,000!

This only applies to Laca cases, i.e. properties without individual titles being issued. As for non-laca cases, this is not really an issue as the bank will automatically absorb the sum.

The beauty of auction properties with most overseas banks is they will pay up the owing sum directly to the management corporation. As compared with the local banks, they will normally ask the buyer to fork out the money first, then claim back the money from the local banks at later stage, which sometime takes up to one year! Therefore, if you are buying properties through auction with local banks, please get ready the owing sum first as part of your initial outlay.

New features added to www.tiramrealty.com.my

I'm pleased to inform you some of the exciting updates on Tiram Realty website:

(1) Property Listing - where you can search for the properties you are interested online. If you are interested on listing your property with us, please drop us a email. Do try out our advanced search function under the property listing section as well.

(2) Property Channel - A video channel showing property-related videos online, where you will find FREE tips on home improvement, home decoration, fengshui/geomancy, property news and general information on living in Malaysia.

(3) Newsletter - The first issue of our newsletter, i.e. The Real Estate Insider has been issued and sent out on 24th July, 2007. For those who's interested, please wait no further and register to our newsletter right now!

(4) Property Events - Any upcoming property events will be shown, such as seminar or exhibition.

(5) Podcast - Tired of reading? Have you tested our Tiram Podcast? Let our broadcaster to read out our articles for you. You can even choose to download our article in mp3 format!

Enjoy!

Landlord and Tenant #4: What if my tenant run away without settling his utility bills?

Can you imagine a tenant of a single storey terrace house owed the water authority for over RM3000 and get away with it? Howabout a tenant of a half an acre factory owed the TNB for over RM100,000 in few months time? Yes, they do happen to my clients.

Question arises here as to who is responsible for the owing? Many of you will tell me, the tenant, of course. Legally, you all got it right, but practically, it "may" be the owner's onus to settle the owing at the end of the day.

Say, Albert is the tenant of property owned by Tony. Albert left the building without informing Tony, and Albert owed the Tenaga Nasional Berhad for RM6000 electricity bills. The account is under Tony's name. The electricity supply was then been disconnected by TNB.

Two months later, Tony found himself a new tenant, and wanted to reconnect the electricity supply for the new user. TNB's officer will normally tell you this, "we can't reconnect the supply for you unless you have cleared the previous owning."

Two things you should take note here,
(1) TNB do understand that owning is made by the tenant, not the landlord,
(2) TNB has this policy saying that they cannot reconnect the supply to the same property until such time the owning are fully cleared. And they don't really care who's responsible for that owning.

So, in the end of the day, the landlord still has to pay up the owning made by the tenant in order to reconnect back the supply. Hey, wait! There is a court case few years ago telling otherwise! I hear people shouting now, yes, there is a court case which the landlord won, the TNB has to reconnect the supply because the owning are not made by the landlord, but the tenant. However, you need to take TNB to the court for this purpose, because TNB treats that particular case as an isolated case, which they will go on a case by case basis.

Henceforth, if you are facing this problem now, you either pay up the owing, and rent the property out right now, , or you can bring TNB to court for that matter. However, do yo know how long does it take for your matter to bring up to court? Can you afford to wait for the court's final decision and leave your property empty for months or even years? This is what i meant just now by saying, legally yes, but practically no.

My reminder to you all is, whenever you collect your rental from your tenant, please remember to obtain a paid copy of receipt for the utility bills at least on a bi-monthly basis.

Property Auction Tips #5: Should i bid for a caveated property?

This is a question posted to me by one of our Tiram blog reader. Apparently, she came across a Proclamation of Sale (P.O.S) of a property in Kuala Lumpur which she's interested in buying. It so happened that the property has been caveated. She then sought advice from few registered estate agents on the issues on caveat, nevertheless she couldn't seem to obtain a satisfactory answer.

This is what i would do should i come across any caveated properties in auction:
(1) Talk to the P.O.S lawyer on the nature of the caveat in questioned, and the possibility of removing the caveat,
(2) Obtain second opinion from my panel lawyer on the possibility of removing the caveat,
(3) Should i get both negative answers from both lawyers, i won't even market the property to any of my client at the first place
(4) Should i get conflicting answers from both lawyers (and yes, lawyers do differ in their opinions sometime), i will also advise my client not to bid for the property.

I've always told my client that buying properties is a happy thing to do, but it may turn out to be some not so delightful event should you get yourself caught up with some legal predicament.

Always make sure that you know what you are buying.