Saya akan muncul di segmen Assalamualaikum TV Al-Hijrah pada Rabu, 20.5.2015 di dalam segmen hartanah untuk berkongsi ilmu tentang masalah dan penyelesaian isu-isu yang timbul apabila menyewakan rumah kepada penyewa.
Berikut adalah soalan-soalan yang ditimbulkan oleh penerbit untuk saya terangkan dalam segmen hartanah tersebut (saya salin secara verbatim) :
FOKUS/SIPNOSIS:
Kekecewaan adalah perkataan yang paling tepat untuk digambarkan kepada pemilik rumah yang memberi sewa kepada penyewa yang suka hati mengubah suai rumah dan tidak menjelaskan bayaran sewa tepat pada masanya. Inilah lumrah yang terpaksa dihadapi pemilik rumah yang menyewakan rumah mereka kepada orang lain. Perjanjian awal di antara pemilik dan penyewa sudah tentu pelbagai kata-kata manis diberikan.
SOALAN :
1. Sebagai penyewa, apa yang perlu anda lakukan apabila menyewa rumah?
2. Apakah yang dibolehkan dan tidak dibolehkan sebagai penyewa untuk melakukan pengubahsuaian rumah?
3. Mengikut Perjanjian sewa rumah, apakah tindakan tuan rumah sekiranya mereka gagal patuhi?
4. Penyewa sukahati ubah meter.
5. Selain itu, sewa bulanan dilambatkan namun masih mampu untuk mengubahsuai rumah tersebut.
6. Kata-kata akhir pesanan kepada penyewa dan tuan rumah.
Saya akan jawap soalan-soalan yang ditanya dalam rancangan Assalamualaikum esok pagi. Rancangan ini berlangsung di antara pukul 8.30 pagi sehingga 10.30 pagi setiap Isnin sehingga Ahad secara live daripada Pusat Penyiaran Digital TV Al-Hijrah di Kompleks Pusat Islam, Kuala Lumpur.
This question is not only asked by
the purchaser of a property transaction but is also asked by the seller who
sells the property to get money out of it. Most seller and purchaser expect a
property transaction to be completed within a month or two. That is not the
case as there are various factors to be taken into consideration and various
parties involved other than the seller and the purchaser.
A lawyer is involved in a property
transaction as a facilitator. A lawyer manages the various parties involved in
the property transaction which include :
1)the seller;
2)the purchaser;
3)the lawyer representing the seller
(if the lawyer is acting for the purchaser) and vice versa;
4)the housing developer (which an be the seller
or involved in the transaction as the property is not issued with an individual
title yet);
5)the land office (where the property
is registered as proof of ownership);
6)the state authority (which is
actually represented by the land office but is involved if the property is a property which requires a consent to transfer or consent to charge - usually leasehold property);
7)local authority (to pay for any assessment
notice arrears);
8)bank or banks (depending whether the purchaser
purchase the property by taking a housing loan and if the seller still owes the
bank any money which need to be paid first)
The duration of a property
transaction from the time that the Sale & Purchase Agreement is signed to
the time that the purchaser can say that he is the new owner of the property
fluctuates according to the type of property being transacted. The easiest type
of property to transfer will be a piece of land but this type of property also
has pitfalls which can drag the transaction into many months. If the property
is a house, the package that it comes in will be the key to the process. A
house can be built on a piece of land and sell as a terrace house, a bungalow
or a semi-D. A house can also be an apartment, a condominium and a penthouse. Agreements
governing the sale of the house built on land and the one sold as a strata
property are different.
When you buy from a property
developer, the sale of a house on land will use the agreement provided for in
Schedule G under the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act 1966 which
is the sale of building and land. The time frame provided for the property to
be completely built and delivered to the purchaser is two years. Within the two
years, the housing developers at their own pace must built the structure of the
house, get all the infrastructures within the housing development ready, deal
with authorities and finally deliver the key to the house buyer. The sale of strata
property will use the agreement provided for in Schedule H of the Housing
Development (Control and Licensing) Act 1966 which is the sale of building or
land which will be subdivided into parcel. As for strata property, the
timeframe is increased to three years as there are a lot more complications in
building a property with many units within it.
As housing developers has their own
capability in building their housing project, you cannot actually say they are
not delivering because you do not see any construction is taking place at the
place where your new house is supposed to be. As much as housing developers are
said to have a reputation as businessmen who don’t deliver what they have
promised, they can set the schedule of building the houses according to their
own time frame. If they are serious businessmen, they will want more purchasers
to purchase their housing project and keep them in business. Only when there are no progress in the
housing development for more than one year should you worry about the fate of
your house, if you buy the property from a housing developer.
However, if you are buying a property
from another individual, the timeframe for the completion of the transaction
can fluctuate between three months to more than a year (even more), depending
on the type of property that you are buying and how you intend to finance your
purchase. If the property that you are buying is not charged to any financial
institution and the property does not require to be approved by the state
authority to be transferred, whether the property has been issued a title or
not, the time for it to be transferred can be a short time of two or three
months. This is a very rare occurrence in this day and age as most property is
purchased by the vendor in the first instance using a financial institution.
If the property is charged to a
financial institution, the time for the transfer will be determined by the
efficiency of bank which has put a charge on the property before it is sold.
The bank will only release the property from its control once it has receives
the full amount of payment due from the purchaser’s financier. Just imagine the
intricacies that are involve as your lawyers have to communicate with your
financier, with the vendor’s lawyer, with the vendor’s bank and in certain
matters, the vendor himself, in trying to get the property unencumbered. Once
payment are made, the lawyer who handles the finance side of your purchase will
have to secure the interest of the financial institution that you have chosen
to finance your property transaction. That will take another duration which
will depend on the efficiency of your lawyer and to some extent, your
financier.
One of the
timeframe which usually delay the completion of a property transaction is when
consent to transfer need to be acquired from the State Authority. ‘Application
for Consent to Transfer’ as it is called usually takes between 3 months or more
especially if the transfer is from a bumiputra seller to a non-bumiputra
purchaser. Surprisingly, once consent to transfer is obtained, a consent to
charge will only requires a maximum of 2 weeks to be obtained from the same
department.
If the property
is still not issued with an individual title, the housing developer which had
built the property needs to be involved in the equation. Although Section 22D
of the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act 1966 has specifically
stated a housing developer should not withhold confirmation of any arrears and
can only charge RM50-00 for issuing an undertaking to the lawyer(s) handling
the transaction, things get complicated if there are arrears, if Joint
Management Body decided to be tough and if the property is under receivership,
to quote a few ‘complications’. Add between two weeks to three months for your
lawyer to resolve this.
Another delay
will usually happen when the property needs to be redeemed from the seller’s
financier. As the seller’s financier is in the process of losing a customer,
the department that handles the issuance of redemption statement and handling
the redemption itself usually takes time to do as such. Another factor is the
security documents are usually kept by a storage company and takes some
reasonable time to be located. Add in another one or two month to the equation.
These are just
some examples which can crop up when a property transaction is being conducted
by your lawyer. A good advice for novice or even seasoned seller or purchaser
of property to follow closely your lawyer who conducts your property
transaction and help them facilitate the transaction wherever you could.
This article was first published in Property Insight magazine, April 2015 edition
After the Tokyo Book Fair 2014 (which I still haven't blogged about) and the New Delhi Book Fair 2015, last week, between 14 to 16 of April 2015, I managed to attend the London Book Fair 2015. Unlike the Tokyo Book Fair 2014 and the New Delhi Book Fair 2015, I properly attend the three-day event as I was given the task by the owner of Fixi, Amir Muhammad, to help him to bring Malaysian publishers to the London Book Fair in 2016. We are determine to do it without government help as we think the London Book Fair can be a springboard to a lot of Malaysian publishers to break new territory.
It was one year, in 2014, after Fixi won the Bookseller International Adult Trade Publisher Award at the International Book Industry Excellence Awards. Here is the Star newspaper coverage about Fixi win last year. It was a proud moment for Fixi and I had just joined Fixi. I now can claim to be one of Fixi's stable of writers with 2 short stories being accepted in their anthologies (Lost in Putrajaya and MF2014) and 2 Malay novels : Pinjam and Pentas. Here's my Goodreads link.
At the London Book Fair, where the business of books were conducted by business people, there were so many writers abound looking for opportunity. As you have to pay to get a badge, at GBP35, you know all that attended the London Book Fair were serious people. Unlike the other book fairs I attended, I planned to do so as well. I attended nearly most of the interesting forum, book launches, author's talk, technology briefing and pavilion's launches. Singapore have a pavilion which Amir said was getting bigger and bigger. Indonesia on account of being the guest country in October 2015's Frankfurt Book Fair 2015 (the biggest book fair in the world) had quite a big pavilion too.
Mexico was the Market Focus country for London Book Fair 2015 and had a huge pavilion. I managed to catch Elena Poniatowska, a famous Mexican writer; Chris Evans before he opened up the Club room, a frank discussion among translators from various countries about the fees they are getting paid for doing translations, a discussion by those who are bringing the Susanna Clarke's book : Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell to television, a talk by Conchita Wurst and a few other talks which I managed to hear bits and pieces of. Some of these writers I only heard of for the first time although they looked adored by a few people.
Outside of London Book Fair, I managed to get into Amir Muhammad's good grace to be brought to meet the people from the Big Bad Wolf, a few od Indonesian filmmakers and we even had dinner with writers Tash Aw, Zen Cho and Lina Tan (a television producer). From Malaysia there were Ling Lung and his wife from Lejen Press with Syafiq, the writer for Ajaib and Awan and Fixi had Ariff Adly, the writer for Kacau and Gelap.
Needless to say, the sight, the sound and the experience at the London Book Fair 2015 left me wanting more and I hope I will be back next year.
Oh, Amir Muhammad and I did went to the British Library a day after the London Book Fair where we managed to sight the original manuscripts of Hikayat Raja Babi (will be published by Fixi at the Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur 2015) and the Magna Carta.
Dengan nama pena 'Anuar Shah', saya telah menulis dua buku.
Buku pertama saya, Pinjam telah diterbitkan pada 2014 di Kuala Lumpur Alternative BookFest. Kali pertama saya memegang buku Pinjam adalah ketika saya pergi ke Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Putrajaya di Pusat Konvensyen Antarabangsa Putrajaya. Saya hanya memegangnya tetapi tidak memiliki satu pun buku Pinjam itu sehingga seminggu kemudia di KL Alternatif BookFest 2014, yang kali terakhir diadakan di Annexe Gallery di belakang Pasar Seni Kuala Lumpur.
Pegang je, tak boleh nak belek pun sebab penjualnya adalah MPH, bukan Fixi
Tahun 2015, semasa saya sibuk hendak melancakan buku kedua saya dengan Fixi, Pentas, tiba-tiba saya mendapat WhatsApp daripada rakan satu sekolah saya, saudara Zaid, yang tinggal di Putrajaya. Dia telah pergi ke Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Putrajaya beberapa lebih awal daripada masa yang telah ditetapkan untuk saya pergi ke sana. Dia menghantar WhatsApp yang menunjukkan Pinjam adalah Bestseller 2014 di Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Putrajaya itu.
Gambar-gambar WhatsApp daripada rakan saya, Zaid
Saya menjadi tidak sabar untuk Sabtu, 21hb sampai. Semua yang bakal berlaku pada 21hb Mac 2015 itu telah saya cerita di blogpost ini.
21hb Mac itu, saya telah dijemput sebagai salah seorang daripada penulis-penulis True Wealth, penerbit buku siri Ask the Lawyer saya untuk memberi sedikit seminar percuma terutama yang berkaitan dengan buku-buku saya.
Saya menjadi lebih teruja untuk ke sana kerana saya ingin melihat sendiri buku saya sebagai Bestseller 2014. Ia menjadi cukup nostalgia kerana itu lah tempat pertama saya melihat buku Pinjam itu sendiri.
Saya menjadi lebih bangga dan berterima kasih kerana staff MPH yang ada mengenali saya dan meminta mengambil gambar dengan saya. Seorang kedengaran berkata "Aku dah cakap, kat Pesta Buku ni kita dapat jumpa ramai orang terkenal."
Dengan pekerja-pekerja MPH pagi itu
Dalam hati sendiri menyebut "Wah, penulis Fixi dianggap sebagai orang terkenal."
Selepas saya habis memberi seminar pendek itu, terjumpa dua rakan se-universiti saya yang berkahwin sesama mereka dengan anak mereka yang sudah boleh dikatakan 'anak dara'. Saya sudah lama tidak berjumpa mereka. Sempat mengambil gambar dan kemudian di dalam group WhatsApp kami rakan saya berkata anaknya telah mengedarkan gambarnya dengan penulis Pinjam kepada kawan-kawannya (walaupun masa berjumpa tak minat untuk saya menandatangani buku Pinjam yang ibu bapanya tawarkan untuk beli untuknya).
Memang cukup bersyukur dan gembira dengan pencapaian novel sulung saya, Pinjam, itu.
p/s : Jika minat nak baca Pinjam boleh beli di website Fixi ini dan jika mahu mengikut perkembangan novel Pinjam dan novel-novel indie oleh Fixi, boleh ikut di sini.
It is happening tomorrow and Sunday, 21st and 22nd of March 2015 at Dataran Underground (below Dataran Merdeka).
I always have a sentimental attachment to Kuala Lumpur Alternative BookFest. My first novel, Pinjam, was launched there last year and of course, it was the first place it was sold. I have always visited it before I was involved in any direct way with it. Kuala Lumpur Alternative BookFest is always held together with Art for Grabs, which is a flea market for artworks and small time vendor.
Here is a video of the launch of Pinjam last year where Amir Muhammad, the owner of Fixi interviewed me.
It was always been held at the Central Market Annexe Gallery which made it even more nostalgic for me as Central Market was the place I lepak when I was in high school. Not that I was schooling anywhere near Central Market or Kuala Lumpur for that matter (My boarding school was in Labu, Negeri Sembilan), but it was where we, non KL-ites followed our brethen from KL when we alighted from the Seremban-Kuala Lumpur Ekspress. Yes, Central Market was the place I remember well.
Annexe Gallery, a building behind Central Market was one of the first cineplex in Kuala Lumpur. This was before cineplexes are a norm like nowadays. We were quite jakun seeing a cinema with multiple screen. I was from the generation where we went to one cinema to see one movie. The joke among my younger friends is I am so old I watched Superman (with Christopher Reeves) and Star Wars in cinema. Even when I said I watched the first Die Hard in cinema they had a laughing fit.
Anyway, this year, my second book will be out (it is sold as eBook since Friday the13th of March - I asked specifically for that date) and the printed version will be sold today, Friday, 20th March 2015). For the eBook, it can be bought here :
The printed version can be bought at most major bookstores within a week and can be ordered at Fixi's website. And of course, at the Kuala Lumpur Alternative BookFest 2015.
Pentas is about magic and 'real' magic. It is based on some story found in the Quran and how the magicians were judged when an incident happened on stage while they were performing. It refers to so many well-known magician including Houdini, David Copperfield and even the street magicians who are quite popular today. It has a bit of courtroom drama at the end and in true Fixi's books form, it has a twist.
This time around, Kuala Lumpur Alternative BookFest will be held at a new venue. It will be at Dataran Underground which is an event space under Dataran Merdeka, the place facing an iconic building no one shouldn't know if you are Malaysian or if you ever been to Malaysia. It has a nostalgic connection to me too, but enough of that. This place will be featured in my next novel, Persona, which I need to finish writing first.
Come over to Kuala Lumpur Alternative Book Fair and here are some links for you to check out in order for you to get an idea what it is all about.
Kuala Lumpur Alternative BookFest 2015 reviewed in the Star and Poskod.my. Both listed full schedule of the BookFest.
Here are some other events you can find at KL Alternative BookFest 2015. Fellow alumnus of my high school, Nasron Yassin is launching his Karya Agong, released by Dubook Press, at 3.30pm the same day.
Here's another event by Fixi much earlier at 12 noon (quite interesting but I can't be there as I am in Putrajaya Book Fair)
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