No it is illegal to lock the tenant in or out because you have entered into a tenancy agreement with him that means he has the right of entry and usage of your property as per stipulated in the tenancy agreement. Whether he miss his rental payment is not the issue here. Unfortunately in cases like this you have to go by the procedure by sending him letters requesting him to pay up, letter to terminate the tenancy, and if he still doesn't entertain, make a police report and then find a lawyer to seek court order to enter the property. The court bailiff will enter together as well as a valuer if there are valuable belongings inside that you can auction off to recover whatever that he is owing to you.

Most likely is that you will incur more losses as there won't be a lot of valuable things from a tenant who cannot even pay the rental but this is how it is.

Or you can report to police and talk to them see if they can talk to the tenant, ask them to leave after you've terminated the tenancy. Sometimes the same word delivered by police can be a lot more powerful than the same word delivered by yourself. Then afterwards show some gratuity to the police officer that helped you, i think you know what to do.

Dear all landlords,

If you guys are facing the issue of tenants not paying rent LISTEN TO THIS CAREFULLY.

I am giving PRACTICAL and REALISTIC advice to landlords, based on my own experience in COURT.

Yes, the Law says in the Specific Relief Act 1950 that landlords cannot lock the doors, etc, etc.

Yes, if you watch Judge Judy or other country's courtroom cases, you may be worried that the judge will yell at you and say that you break the law.

Know this, the Specific Relief Act does not lay out the penalty for self-help eviction, unlike other countries where specific laws have been written about the exact amount of compensation for tenants if landlords kick them out.

If you are a landlord in Malaysia and your tenant has been owing rental for some time, this is what you can PRACTICALLY do:

1. deactivate access card/change the front gate lock, etc (make sure you leave some door locks untouched so that the tenant can still move into the house through some other means, this can be your defense in court)

2. DO NOT go into the property, DO NOT steal or touch anything inside. Just lock the door and make the tenant's life miserable.

3. DO NOT perform self-help for commercial tenants, because they can sue for lost income/ expensive damages.

4. ONLY perform this for tenants that you are sure could not afford to pay RM 10k for a lawyer, so that at most, this case will end up at small claims court. Lawyers always give you their perspective from the high court cases, but NOT a single lawyer has ever been to small claims court, so I am here to tell you exactly what will happen if you get sued in small claims court in Malaysia.

IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT, judges are not required to do a judicial review in detail, so they usually will just look at the contract to determine who is right and who is wrong, so make sure you must have a contract that specifically says the tenant has to pay you to rent every month, what deadline, etc.

Even if the tenant were to sue you, what EXACTLY can the tenant claim? Courts do not determine who is right and who is wrong, only who HAS TO PAY.

Even if the landlord is not allowed to perform self-help eviction, there is nothing in the law that says how much compensation/damages the tenant can get as a PENALTY, literally there is ZERO PENALTY for what you do. This is not a crime, it is in the CIVIL law, so even the police cannot arrest you.

On the other hand, you can claim from the judge the amount of owed rental, and the judge WILL award you, because you have the contract, and judges are supposed to decide based on what is in the contract.

So in the end, landlords won't have to pay any damages to the tenant, because the judge could not find any sort of damage that requires you to pay in the contract.

IT IS IMPORTANT THAT LANDLORDS DO NOT TRESPASS, STEAL, TOUCH or ENTER the unit because then, there might be criminal charges and it will be under a separate matter. If landlords are not guilty of any specific crime, just locking the doors will not amount to anything worthy of FINANCIAL damage, so literally, landlords won't have to compensate tenants for anything.

So, if you end up in court, you can still get back your rental. Trust me, it happened. PM me if you don't trust what I say, I have proof of court judgment.

CASE SOLVED