The neighbour below me reported a ceiling stain/leak to my wife while I was overseas. He told her his plumber would check it out in our apartment. She allowed the neighbours plumber to come in and inspect. He declared it was a broken pipe our bathroom wall which would require hacking to repair, and quoted her 3,000RM to fix it. When she messaged me I told her to stop using that bathroom until I got back and checked out the situation.

When I got home I went with the building manager to visit the neighbours apartment. I saw where their ceiling was stained, there was an access panel there, and on opening where you could see the pipe from our bathroom wash hand basin which comes down through our floor (his ceiling slab) and then turns through 90 degrees to join a main drainpipe in his ceiling space.
The 90 degree bend (elbow joint) had a lot of silicone on it, like someone had done an earlier repair. It was peeling away.

I phone my wife and asked her to run the wash hand basin tap in our unit. Water immediately started leaking from the elbow joint. The building manager then peeled away the rest of the old silicone and what was found was a huge crack in the elbow joint. Water was pouring out of it. The neighbours plumber had not identified this problem and became quite angry when we asked him how he had missed it. I was immediately suspicious he had tried to cheat my wife by quoting her the exorbitant sum of 3,000RM to do this easy repair. I obviously no longer trusted this guy.

The neighbour said he would 'get a quote to get it fixed' and I'd have to pay for it. No problem - that's the law (not that I think it's fair in such circumstances, but that's another matter for discussion).

The pipe running from the broken elbow joint to the main drainpipe is about 2 metres long and was not one piece. It had a join in the middle. This pipe was unsupported along its length. I told the neighbour that he should get the quote to include a complete new one-piece pipe (eliminating the joint in the middle) and also get a pipe support installation included in the quote. I said I would pay as I was concerned that the same kind of problem would occur again later if these two extra things were not done.

I heard nothing from him for a week, then he messaged and told me the repair was done! I asked to see it. What I saw was not good. The elbow joint replacement was ok, but they had not used a single piece pipe as I requested. They just re-used the old two piece pipe. Weirdly the plumber had indeed installed a pipe support in the middle (probably with great difficulty in doing so) but he did not route the pipe through the support! The support was just left dangling beside the old 2 metre long pipe (with an old join in it). I told the neighbour that I was not happy with this repair and asked why he had not told me he was doing this work. He told me he had used his 'plumber friend' (the same cheaty guy) and that he was happy with it - the problem is that if it leaks/breaks again it is me who will have to pay again to get it done again! I have no say in the matter, even though I'm paying. (This is where the law is dumb in my view).

Later that day I got the bill from his plumber. 2,000RM.
All the guy did was cut the plastic pipe from our WHB and remove the cracked elbow joint, then replace it with a new one.
The 'support' he installed was a joke, unused, not worth paying for.

I reckon any decent plumber would do this job for half this price. So he's trying to cheat us again. That's my opinion.

So what would you guys do in this situation?
How do I challenge this bill? I know this is going to cause a row with the neighbour.
Although the law says I have to pay, there must be limits - it can't mean people are forced to write a blank cheque for scammers like this.
Do I need a lawyer? Would DBKL be worth talking to?
Thanks in advance.

This post has been edited by Colada: Dec 5 2023, 01:05 AM

I wasn’t given any such choice. Also I think there’s an argument to be made that a home owner has the right to choose who does repairs in his own home. There has to be a happy medium - the owner may have the right to select the plumber, but no right to jack the price up out of reason.

Between neighbours??
Anyway that cuts both ways. The neighbour has no legal contract either.
But I get it - looks like legal action is the only solution.

This post has been edited by Colada: Dec 5 2023, 12:36 PM

I want to add one more thing.

This system is dumb.

The regulation is crazy.

It means that pipe infrastructure that is below his floor, beyond the reach and view of an owner, out of his sight, impossible to inspect or maintain, is nevertheless his full responsibility to repair and maintain.

When piping is situated in the dead ceiling space of a neighbour below (which is not even the property of the neighbour below, but considered 'common property') how on earth can the neighbour above take care of it or maintain it?

Deterioration is inevitable, and when a leak ultimately occurs, the neighbour below is required to commence this rigmarole to contact the neighbour above, get them to do inspections, hope they'll show some interest, and fix it quickly - or pursue legal action (through the Building Management) to force the repair work.

Meanwhile further damage may be happening unnecessarily because of all this faffing about.

As an apartment owner - I find this all ridiculous. If I see a pipe is leaking in my apartment I'd prefer to just get it fixed myself. It's in my apartment, and I can act faster to rectify it properly. No back and forth communications necessary, no booking meetings for inspections, no causing of unnecessary friction or disputes with a neighbour. Just fix it and be done with it.

It might be different if the leak is coming into my place from a broken pipe inside the unit above - or is the result of failing waterproofing in a bathroom above me. Then it's up to the neighbour above to do the repairs because it's really inside their apartment and their own clear responsibility. I'm certain this is the scenario the regulations were written for.

But they're being incorrectly applied to pipe leaks inside the ceiling in the lower apartment.

I think Building Managers are the biggest culprits in this. They like to interpret it this way, it suits them to avoid having to do the repairs from their own budget. It saves them the hassle.
As I said above - ceiling spaces in apartments are usually considered 'common area' and all infrastructural problems in common areas are (should be!) the responsibility of the common property management.

It's all a great big mess as it is. Who would ever write a regulation like that?

This post has been edited by Colada: Dec 5 2023, 09:53 PM

If your plumber can't identify the problem I think it comes down to the same issue as mine - incompetent plumbers. My neighbours plumber is incompetent, and a cheat. I was the one who properly diagnosed the problem. It was obvious. So either he was too incompetent to see it, or he was cheating by trying to make a bigger deal of it than it actually was.
I've checked the Malaysian law and it says that any plumber working on plumbing in a condo, especially where it involves branching into main drains, is required to be licenced. The legislation gives several different classes of the licences required. But of course none of them have such licences. They are mostly untrained and low educated guys who 'learn on the job' from other unlicenced low educated guys. People put up with it, thinking its cheaper than getting a properly licenced plumber. But when the repairs are shoddy, or pricing is jacked up unnecessarily - it ain't so cheap after all. I accept that it is very hard to get licenced plumbers. They get work in major construction etc. The small plumbers are no better than handymen.

This post has been edited by Colada: Dec 7 2023, 04:55 PM

Thanks for those ideas. You're right - his invoice shows no breakdown of the pricing and I've already asked our building manager to demand that. He just wrote 'Labour', 2,000RM. Nothing about how many hours he worked on it, materials costings etc. A different plumber today gave me a quote based on photos of the job. He said 750RM. So the neighbours plumber is charging 3 times the correct price.
Oh - he also wrote 'cash' meaning he wants paid off the books. Tax scam too.
I'm waiting to hear what the BM comes back with.

This post has been edited by Colada: Dec 7 2023, 08:42 PM