what if the owner is having financial problem , sickness or jobless ... you all still want to cut his water supply... how is he and his family going to live ...?

But first of all, is it even legal for the management to cut off water supply if the owner didn't pay the service charges assuming the service & water bill is different & the owner pays the water bill?

LOL.

Is the condo management a charity ngo, a religious body or a gomen welfare body ?

If the owner is in financial difficulty, he has to seek help somewhere else. And more importantly, everyone will come out of grandmother story of financial problem. If you are slack on one, you will be slack on 10,000 people, and that's how cancer cells spread.

My mistake, I should say the process to execute your rights in Malaysia is painful and costly operation... This is also why landlords are also headache with playing rental game in Malaysia.

It has been implemented and executed for years by some condo management.

I would say at best, it's grey but the condo management has an upper hand over it. It can say since the owner has not paid his maintenance fees and now the pipe or the meter is faulty and the management has no money to fix it or something ....

If other managements can execute it for so many years I am sure there is a way to get over it.

If he has financial problems then solve it. If that stupid excuse can be used then I want to claim I have financial problem too to skip paying the maintenance fees.

you can stop the owner using other facilities right? why need to cut water? no water can die wei..

you can "cut" other things like parking, clubhouse etc ... but no water can die wor...

In condo, if only your unit got no water, won't die !

The common bathrooms got water. Your neighbour got water.

And if you settle off the bills immediately, you got more water. LOL.

+1 ... water cut can be the last resort after numerous warning. So it is the resident's fault if they got their unit's water being cut. Heck if we no pay water bill also they will cut our water la ... then how ? wan cry-foul to who ?

The othr problem is the JMB is made-up of normal owners in the apartmnt or condo itself. I hav heard of mmbers of the JMB who try to excute some harder tctics to collct maintenance fees being threathend wth physical abuse by the errant non-payrs. In the end, the JMB membrs jus resignd from the JMB and wash hnds so as not to be beatn-up by the irresposble owners.

Isn't that the idea though? You have to cut something that matters to them or else they won't pay up. Do you think I care if I can't use the facilities? Unless you can stop me from using the lift I could care less whether I can use the facilities or not.

Now the SMA make recovery quite simple.

Step 1:-
- Assuming you give 30 days’ credit term.
- invoice date + 30 days.

Step 2:-
- 31st day, amount is considered DUE.
- service notice demanding payment.
- notice + 14 days.

Step 3:-
- file recovery claim with tribunal. (note recommended- court [first route too expensive] and section 79 [second route, unless the due is more than RM 100K, this route is very risky because you are about to foreclose a person’s property]).
- let the tribunal get its hand dirty.
- owner “without reasonable excuse” for not pay, commit an offence, liable to either fine of 5K or imprisonment not exceeding 3 years or both and RM 50K every day during the offence continues after conviction. (example: after being fined RM 1,000, the owner still refuse to pay the maintenance fee, he will be fined by court for every day he is in default).

I forgot to mention that it looks good on paper only. Not quite sure how it will work out in practice.

Lotsa maintenance fee horror story hor.

Let me share my experience, which may shed some light on a particular scenario, as well as condo management behavior.

1. Some owners are not easily contactable

In my case I bought a place but before it was completed, and before I was posted overseas. Thus my registered address with the developer was at a rented place I stayed before the posting. Condo management kept sending maintenance notice to my old address for at least year, even though nobody paid. They even issued a letter from a lawyer.

2. Condo management's attitude

I don't know why they never bother to even send letter to the actual condo address; you could argue that it's not their responsibility, and that kind of tells you condo management's attitude (I leave it up to you to interpret). I was overseas so I rented out the unit so my tenant would have informed me.

NOTE: I do not absolve myself from blame, it was my duty to inform them of my change of address. However, being first time owner the condo maintenance fee completely slipped my mind. When I realized, I contacted the condo management and paid up everything, including the high interest rates, with no arguments.

This post has been edited by khorsh: Jul 10 2015, 01:06 PM

how is they going to pay the mortgage loan itself if this happen?

anyway, i thought this problem only occur at low cost flat/medium cost apartment
first we need to understand why owner refuse to pay the maintenance?
is it because they expect tenant to pay it? if yes, is there any proper clause in rental agreement regarding who actually should pay for it?

too many questions and unclear answer. so the better/safest way is to deal with owner to include maintenance fee into your monthly rental.
let say rental is 1500, maintenance fee 200. make a deal with owner, bank in 1300 to them and another 200 to management. problem solved.

I agree that it's important to find out why first. However, JMB sometimes don't care, and I cannot blame them if there are not paid at all.

Yes including the maintenance fee into the rental is best; however, there are owners who are unwilling since they don't want to advertise the higher price. I personally prefer to rent out at lower price to a better tenant because I see it as a future home, or a long-term investment, and don't want to do something that will bring down the value of the property or bring trouble to others living in the same property.

This post has been edited by khorsh: Jul 12 2015, 11:26 AM

Is JMB = Persatuan ?

errr. can i point out a question?

Electricity in condo normally is direct TNB. If the unit pays their own bills promptly shouldn't be a problem to electricity supply. How come your condo whole building cut supply?

Management account in deficit. The expenses outstrip the income. Very few ppl realize jmb also can be bankrupted also.

many condos do practice to put all the owners' name and units on the notice board on regular basis. just to harass the stubborn owners.

or bar the access card

hope it helps a bit.