Lemonade Time

Got some good news from my property developer this morning. It seems that they are willing to reinstate my voided S&P provided that I get financing on the unit as soon as possible. This means that as soon as I can get the bank to release the progress payment to the property then I will continue to have a claim to the unit. I guess that they would rather have a confirmed buyer now rather than leaving it to the open market. I couldn’t be happier since that means that I would not be losing the RM 18.5K I already dumped into the deal. It would have been too much of a heartache to lose all that money.

On the flip side of things, the pipes went dry in my current apartment over the weekend for no apparent reason or notice. It was just fine on Saturday morning when I took my shower and used up all the water I had collected to wash up my bathroom. The moment I finished washing the walls of my bathroom, the water flow slowed down to a trickle before stopping completely shortly after. I didn’t even get a chance to collect the water I need in my emergency water containers around my place.

I waited for the water to come back for a few hours before I gave up and called my brother to come pick me up. I had a load of wash that I absolutely had to do that weekend and going back to my parents house during the weekend looked to be the only viable option. So I went back on Saturday night, spent the night over and came back Sunday night to find that the taps were still dry. It was good that I was prepared enough to bring my huge water containers with me when I went back to Selayang or else I would have no water to bathe in this morning.

I do hope they fix the water problem today or else it would mean another trip back to Selayang to get water for tomorrow morning. Not that I don’t mind getting the free home cooked meal that my mum would practically force me to take when I go back but the thought of lugging those heavy water containers up 4 flights of stairs does not make me a happy camper. I guess carrying all that water will be my workout replacement for today’s workout session.

When life throws lemons at you, you better prepare to make lemonade.

Time to Cut Losses?

My long delayed apartment continues to give me more grief than it’s worth.

The latest headache came in when I found a letter from the developer waiting for me in my mailbox when I came back from work last Friday. I was expecting to hear from them about the project restarting again after being delayed for the past 2 years so I didn’t think much about the letter. Once I opened the letter and read it, I literally had to sit down and get over the shock to find out that the developers had terminated my S&P agreement for non payment. Not only that, everything that I have already put into the property was to be forfeited to the developer company.

For the past 2 years, I have been working with my bank representative to secure a new housing loan for this property. My first loan for the apartment had to be voided when the developer changed my unit after the local council did not approve the original floor plans for the apartment which unfortunately impacted the unit that I bought. When I tried to secure a new loan for the new unit, it came to light that the developer did not have an active developer loan number (or something to that effect) with the banks. This meant that I could not go to any bank to get financing to purchase the apartment.

Every time I talked to someone in the developer’s office about their loan number issue, I continue to get the assurance that it was looked into and that the banks will be advised to their new active loan arrangement. Month after month these past 2 years, I’ve constantly checked with my bank representative who by now knows me by sight if there was any change with the loan situation. In each occasion, I got the same answer back that the developer was still without a valid developer loan license.

While all this was happening, the developer was also sending me notices for penalty interest charges for late payment. At first I went ahead and paid them as they came as I thought that it was just a temporary situation. As the months progressed with little change in the loan problem, I began to withheld payment to these notices after discussing it with one of the staff from the developer’s office who advised me that the will suspend the interest penalty charges. At the time it made sense for me since the project itself was on hold due to financial troubles that the developer was experiencing.

A ray of hope seem to dawn earlier this year when they announced that the project was being revived by a more reputable developer. Everyone who purchased units in that project had to come in and sign a waiver that we would not claim any late delivery charges so the new developer could complete the project without added cost to them. Given that the alternative to the plan was having nothing at all to show for the money that we put in, the majority of the buyers agreed to the plan. I had hoped that with the new developer in plan, the bank would now get a new developer loan number for me but it was still status quo as of 2 weeks ago.

After reading the letter of termination that I got last Friday, I had to sit down and think about what I should do about the property. On one hand, I could cut my losses and start fresh by looking for another suitable property to purchase. This current property has given me nothing but headaches from the day I put my signature on the S&P agreement. On the other had, I already have RM 18.5K of my own hard earned savings plugged into that property and invested about 5 years of my time in it. Thinking about how hard I had to work to get that amount money back then makes it all the more difficult to let it go.

I gave the developer’s office a call this morning to explain my situation and to explore avenues left to me. Fortunately I got the promise that my case will be brought up to the management who will decide if I would be allowed to renew my S&P agreement with them with hopefully a new approved housing loan. I will get to know their decision by next Monday so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. If it works out that I will still have to forfeit the money and the apartment then there would be little more that I can do other than taking the punch and roll with it.

Property Problems - Part III

It turned out that when I agreed to change the apartment that I had purchased back in 2003, I wasn’t fully advised of what I really needed to do. When I first bought the unit, I selected one on the 21st floor in the middle block of a 22 floor condominium complex. A year into the purchase, I was told that the developers had sold units on floors that they have yet to get approval from the local council. It seemed that there was a floor limit for buildings in the area in that all buildings should not exceed 19 floors excluding underground facilities. Since the unit I bought was on the 21st floor it basically meant that I was screwed.

The developer decided to change the plans and add more units to the approved 19 floors and offer them to unit buyers on the 21st and 22nd floors as replacement. All of the affected unit owners were given the choice to either get back our initial deposit or select a replacement unit in the new floor layout. The unit size and price remained the same but the physical location of the unit was different from the original layout. I decided to take the replacement unit offered instead of getting my deposit refunded like almost 50% of the other buyers of the affected units. So instead of owning a unit on 21st floor of a 22 floor complex, I was now an owner of a unit of the top most floor of a 19 floor complex.

What they didn’t tell me was that a new sales and purchased agreement would have to prepared and provided to the back to replace the original that they held for my housing loan. I never thought to check until two weeks ago when the notice for payment of the first building phase came in the mail and showed that I didn’t have a bank loan amount listed to pay for it. The letter stated that if I failed to pay within 14 days of the date of the letter, I would have to pay 10% p.a. of the stated amount as late charges until the total was paid in full.

I’ve been chasing after the developers, lawyers and bank officers since the notice and it has just been a run around of blame avoidance. It seemed that my new S&P document has been with the lawyers for a year and no one from their offices tried to contact me to collect them. The lawyers were telling me that it was not their fault that no one from their office even bothered to check if the document was signed and collected. The developers told me that it was not their fault that their lawyers were not doing their job. The bank said that their can’t release payment without the new S&P documents. The bank’s lawyers said that it was not their fault that they didn’t follow-up on the new S&P after receiving the letter from the developers advising them of the change to the sales documents. Not only was I screwed but I also had to pay extra to the developers until the bank released payment to the developer.

So this is where things stand now. I’ve sorted out all the paperwork, submitted it to the bank and would have the payment released to the developers within 1 month’s time. For those planning to buy a residence, take heed of what happened to me. No matter what the developers tell you, double check with you lawyers. They just want to make the sale and would say anything to close the deal. I guess I can take solace in the thought that it could be worse if I had to wait much longer and accumulate more late charges before the bank released the payment. It would definitely be better if it never happened at all but then I would have never learnt this life lesson.

Property Problems Part II & A Cool Distraction

Took some time off from work today to go to my property developer’s office in Sunway. When I reached the site, I found out that they have closed the office and move all the operations that used to be there to the main office in Pandan Indah. I didn’t receive any prior notification that they were moving. I tried to call the officer who handles my property but was told that she was out on an appointment and that I should try back on a later date.

On the plus side, I did see work being done at the work site. I was able to talk to the security guard on site and he informed me that work was resumed by a different subcontractor beginning last month. They are currently piling the ground before laying down the foundations. I guess that I should be able to see more progress on the parcel in a few months. I don’t think that they will be able to meet the 36 month deadline as stipulated in the sales and purchase agreement but I’m just glad that the construction work is progressing again.

On other news, I’m currently working on creating some comic book characters for a fellow blogger, Nizam Zakaria, for possible use in his upcoming blog novella. He gave his readers a link to a website where you can generate your superhero characters online. I have to say that I’m really enjoying this exercise in imagination. I always wanted to create my own comic book characters and maybe create my own comics but I have about the same amount of drawing talent as monkey with a paint brush. Maybe I might look into trying my hand on comic book script writing instead one day.

In the meantime, try out the HeroMachine2.0 website if you’re interested. It’s a pretty cool distraction.

Property Problems

Last weekend I went by the construction site where the apartment that I bought was suppose to be built and to my surprise there was no progress since I last saw the place in December. I’m now really worried about what is happening with this project. I have not received any letters about any construction delays from the developers and I’m really in the dark about what is going to happen with the property. The developer’s site office was closed the day I passed by so I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone about it.

According to the original sales and purchase agreement, the apartment was supposed to be completed by March 2006. Till now the only thing that I’ve seen completed is the piling work for the foundation of the building. In my first meeting with the developers, I was told that the construction work was delayed due to some of the building approvals being tied up with the local city council. When I saw them the second time, they say that they were facing some labor shortages due to the majority of their workers were migrant Indonesian workers who got sent back home after their work permit expired. I have no idea what excuse I will be hearing out to explain the delay in the construction work.

I guess I count myself still lucky as the bank has not release any payment from my housing loan to them yet or else I would have to start paying the interest on the loan for an apartment that is not even completed. Still I have about RM 13K tied into the property to date and I’m really tempted to call the developer up to get my money back by canceling my agreement with them. I saw another property for sale near my current place that is a much better investment compared to what I have now. I’m really tempted to take up that offer instead as I’m really fed up with the current developer company.

I wonder how long I have to wait before I can get my money back if I do that.

Officially A Housebuyer

The final set of bank documents were delivered to me yesterday and I am officially a homeowner today.

Owning my own home was something that I had been thinking of for quite some time and it was not until I turned 30 that I really did anything about it. I guess the thought of not being able to get a home loan for the maximum amount of years was one of the reasons why I decided to buy a house this year. Most of my friends also encouraged to do so as it seems that the property market is currently experiencing a slump and some pretty good deals are out there. So after thinking long and hard about it, I decided to bite the bullet and start the journey of home buying.

The first thing that I had to think about is what kind of residence that I would like to procure. Initially I was looking for a double-storey link house since I’ve been living in one apartment after another for the past 12 years. I was actually sick of apartment living and yearn to have a yard to call my own. Of course, once I started looking at the prices of link houses, that quickly had to change. The houses that I looked at were either too expensive for me or too far from where I worked. I must have looked at least at 15 different places before I decided to revise my choice to buying an apartment. I’ve always been a finicky buyer.

Buying apartments in KL is actually easier than getting a house. I guess that this is unavoidable since there are more people coming into KL and land space is becoming more expensive. I just hope that we don’t become like Singapore or Hong Kong someday where apartments are cramped and expensive. For the time being, apartment buyers in KLM need only to look at their budget and match it to the offerings out there. For most, to find a good financial fit wouldn’t be too difficult as there is a broad range of apartment choices that cater for most of the income groups. After looking at least at 8 more apartment sites, I decided to take a service condominium in Sunway.

Frankly speaking, I don’t really know the difference between a service and non-service condominium. From the brochures it seems that the facilities are the same as any normal condominium complexes that I’ve seen. Anyway … the price was right and the location was hard to resist being so close to other more developed facilities. I’m thinking that even if I decide not to live there, this was a piece of property that would appreciate in value quite fast once completed. Once that was decided the process of the sales and purchase agreements, EPF withdrawal for down payment, lawyers and applying of bank loan was relatively painless. Although it took some time between each process, I was actually surprised at how smooth the process went all the way to the final documents that I got yesterday.

Now I just have to wait for my apartment to be completed by Aug 2006.