I have not heard of any such case and I highly doubt if they would do that. If you default, they can still auction off your property. So, the security is still there for the bank.

it is a low cost flat situated near to usj subang..buy from an agent..any more information u need?
and what is strata title if u know ..thanx

Leasehold? Freehold? With or without title?

Strata title is the individual title for high-rise properties.

hi there,

would like to ask about the clause in SPA. I am a seller of a property and the selling process has some delay and the lawyer quote me the sentense below:

"Pursuant to Clause 2 of the SPA, Completion Date is 90 days (please refer to definition of days at Clause 22 - working days) from the date of the SPA . Thus, Completion Date is on 5.10.2012 and the Extended Completion Date is 30 days thereafter subject to late payment interest at interest of 8% per annum on unpaid balance from the expiry of the Completion Date till the Balance Purchase Price is paid to the Vendor"

SPA date is 28-May-2012.

the 90-days is referring to 90 "working" days or 90 days including holiday, saturday and sunday?

Pls help to clarify

In any other SPA, it would mean normal days. In fact, completion period is normally measured in months (hence the term '3+1'). It would state 3 months across the board. SPA date 28 May 2012, so 3 months would be 28 August 2012.

However, in your SPA, if it is stated '90 days' and 'day' is defined as 'working/business day', then I believe that the purchaser's lawyer has done a huge favour for his client indeed, to your detriment, unfortunately.

hi dario thanks for the reply.

I check the SPA,

in the definition, there did stated BUSINESS DAY means a day (other than a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday) bla bla bla......

however, some of the clauses in SPA stated DAY instead of BUSINESS DAY. Does it mean DAY also referring to BUSINESS DAY?

Unless DAY is defined specifically in the SPA , DAY ought to mean what it is, i.e. a day.

If DAY is DAY and not BUSINESS DAY, then you would be justified to calculate the completion date to end 90 days from 28 May. So, it would end sometime in the end of Aug 2012, and not October 2012 as what the lawyer had stated. UNLESS there was a delay from your side which extended the completion date.

So, you need to bring this up with the lawyer concerned. Do it in writing.

Hi Dario,

I have just gone and discussed thoroughly today with the bank's credit admin office and confirmed that all that you advised me are valid. A transfer out of love & affection from husband to wife only needs to do an MOT/DOA and the bank will not do anything at all to the loan, i.e. they are ok with 3rd party financing, no need to do refinancing even. Thanks again!

Dear Mario, I recently sold my house and I allowed my buyer to pay part of the deposit (3%) by EPF withdrawal within 3 weeks from the date of the S&P.
The S&P date is 3 September 2012.

And here is the clause:

“….which shall be paid by the Purchaser to the Vendor within three weeks from the date of this agreement by EPF withdrawal, failing which the Vendor shall have the discretion to terminate the Agreement and earnest deposit shall e forfeited by the Vendor as compensation”

And when checked further in the S&P, these are another clauses that I found:
“Business day: If the completion Date or the extended completion date shall fall on a day which is not a business day then the due date for payment shall be extended to the next following business day. For the purpose of the clause, business day shall be a day on which banks are open for business in the sate of Selangor excluding Saturdays and Sundays.

“Definition: In this agreement, unless there is something in the subject or context inconsistent with such construction or unless it is otherwise expressly provided:-
a) a period of days from the happening of an event of the doing of any act or thing shall be deemed to be inclusive of the day on which the event happens or the act or thing is done and if the last day of the period is a weekly holiday or a public holiday (“the excluded day”), the period shall include the next following day which is not an exclude day


When I asked my lawyer, he told me that the definition of 3 weeks here includes only working day, and therefore the due date of the paying by EPF withdrawal will be on the 2 Oct 2012. Is that true?

How do you calculate the due date for this i.e. 3 weeks from 3 September? Is the public holiday and weekends (Sat/Sunday) counted?

Kindly advise.

Thank you

No mario here but am sure I can help you out.

When it comes to 3 weeks, the issue of days does not arise. You just count it as 3 weeks from 3 Sept.

Unless there is a particular definition of week, perhaps to mean 7 working days, then you would need to calculate 3 weeks as 21 working days. But that is highly improbable. So, in my opinion, in your case, 3 weeks would stricly mean 21 normal days.

As such, the last day would be 24 September.

You need to ask your lawyer why he is of the opinion that 3 weeks only includes working days. If the intention of the parties was to calculate working days, then 15 working days would be the equivalent to 3 weeks and that term ought to be used.

Dear Dario, thank you very much for your prompt reply.

I just talked to my lawyer again, and after he gone thru the S&P again, he confirmed that the way of calculating the 3 weeks should be included the weekend/public holiday, hence, the last day would be 24 Sept as per what you said.

So, what is your advise? can i terminate the S&P and forfeit the purchaser deposit if the purchaser didn't pay by 24 Sept? Will the buyer take legal action against me if i forfeit the purchaser deposit?

There is a clause stated in the S&P saying the below:

“….which shall be paid by the Purchaser to the Vendor within three weeks from the date of this agreement by EPF withdrawal, failing which the Vendor shall have the discretion to terminate the Agreement and earnest deposit shall e forfeited by the Vendor as compensation”

thank you!

This post has been edited by Chiahh: Sep 19 2012, 11:29 AM

I think it is quite clear that you CAN terminate if he fails to pay on/before 24 Sept. Whether you SHOULD terminate or not is a decision which only you can decide upon and which is not in my scope to advise.

Greeting,
My company had currently run into a potential Property Agent and owner scam.
I need some advice over here.

We surf iproperty to search for a warehouse at PJ area and come to this agent A.
We had view the warehouse and agree to rent it even it is not under well maintenance, and the condition is WORST.

We had sign a 'LETTER OF OFFER TO RENT CUM TEMPORARY RECEIPT' from the agent.

After around 13's working day we decide to call off the rent, because owner had delay (around 2week) to discuss directly with us regarding the Tenancy Agreement and we can't agree with his term and request to revised the Tenancy Agreement but owner side is not willing to discuss. Owner first direct contact us regarding the Tenancy Agreement was by email, and before this the Agent A is the one who pass the message.

Now the owner lawyer issue us a letter saying that our earnest deposit had been forfeited due to we fail to sign the Tenancy Agreement within 14 working day and decide to call off.

My concern is :
1. In the Letter of offer cum temporary receipt it state that the property agency as STAKEHOLDER. So does they have the right to give owner our earnest deposit cheque before everything have confirm ? As my account told me, the cheque had been bank in by owner on the same day we pass the cheque to the Agent A.

2. Does a Letter of offer to rent cum temporary receipt have any valid legal action in Malaysia ? If it does, and when the Agent A had pass the earnest deposit cheque to owner before everything settle down, did it mean that they had broke the 'Letter of offer to rent cum temporary receipt' ?

3. What does STAKEHOLDER stand for in this case ? If it mean for the property agency to keep our earnest deposit until everything settle down, than can we complaint the lawyer which he is point that our earnest deposit is forfeit due to we had call off the rent.

Not that we don't want to find a lawyer, but the money had gone into owner pocket. And a lawyer to open a file cost RM10k, and it might take time. What if the owner say no money to repay back ? Than before getting back our RM32k earnest deposit we might already rugi to another lawyer.

So we are now trying to make complaint to property society and maybe lawyer society too.
Do you think this could help ?

1. Agent or broker? If agent, there should be a proper booking form and the 2% ought to be made payable to the agency, not to the owner.

2. Of course it is a valid document if both parties agreed to it. What does the terms say? If you don't provide a copy of the document here, how do you expect me to advise you properly?

3. Same as above. It depends on what is stated in the document.

Property society and lawyer society would not assist you in this case. The only way out is to appoint a lawyer to act for you to sue the owner for a refund of the deposit.

Hi. I own a small designing company established 2 years ago.

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with a client who had a menu design job recommended by one of the friend. But, at the end of the project, they decided not to pay up. Yup, they decided that our designs were not “satisfactory” and “did not meet their expectations,” hence, nothing was given to us despite our late nights to rush and complete their job.

Throughout the whole 3 months they were either not picking up our calls, not responding to my emails or just plain avoiding us. I have all the email / SMS conversations and up front payments as proves of the project.

I have been advised by my friend to issue a legal letter for the action. But I was afraid if they even ignored my legal letter, what are the next step can I do?

Even if I bring this case to court, I was afraid the payment for lawyers is even expensive than my whole project's payment.

Please kindly advise.

Your next step would be to appoint a lawyer to file a civil suit for breach of contract against your client.

How much is the outstanding amount? If it is a huge amount AND if you are confident that the client has money to pay AND if you can track them down at their latest address, then you can strongly consider a case.

With regard to the merits of the case, it is hard to say and depends on how strong the agreement between the parties were.

At the end of the day, if you are confident that you can get something out of them, then you can consider taking legal action. But if you think that recovery is going to be difficult or that they do not have the money, then it may not be wise to pursue the matter even though you have a good case in your hands.

Dear Dario, thank you for your reply.

If let say the buyer didn't pay me on or before 24 Sept, and I (as a vendor) decided to terminate the contract, and forfeit the buyer deposit, will the buyer take legal action against me? pls advise.

Let me recap the clause stated in the S&P:

“….which shall be paid by the Purchaser to the Vendor within three weeks from the date of this agreement by EPF withdrawal, failing which the Vendor shall have the discretion to terminate the Agreement and earnest deposit shall be forfeited by the Vendor as compensation

This post has been edited by Chiahh: Sep 20 2012, 12:47 PM

How would I know if the buyer WILL take legal action against you?

This post has been edited by dariofoo: Sep 20 2012, 04:27 PM

If I were to do business in Malaysia, is it wiser to do an agreement between me and my client before committing the project? I heard from a friend saying that an agreement is your "Bao Zhang" or guarantee and even a fast track for the court to process things. Example like Sale & Purchase Agreement. Fees and Expenses will be same like Conveyancing calculation am I right?

Like that in reality, everybody with bad faith can bully small potato like Mr.Bibimomochan. As you know human doesn't have a standard moral and even they know it is wrong but they still do for the sake of love of $.


This post has been edited by Newcastle: Sep 21 2012, 05:50 AM

How do I know whether I've enough proofs for my case? Do SMS / Emails counts as a proof as I do not have a chop & sign contract. I've sent the estimate to my clients and asked them to chop & sign with 50% deposit as confirmation. But they do not have scanner to fax me back, so they just written as "Confirm" in the email with attached 50% deposit.

My amount wasn't that much, but what really pissed me off is that this kind of businessman are taking advantages of the small company like us, especially in the field of designer.