This story was submitted by Pung Chen Choon
It was 1979. I was working as a Sabah-based reporter for a Brunei newspaper. My first child was 3 years old then and we were staying in a company-rented single-storey terrace house in the suburbs of Kota Kinabalu.
Owning my own house was always a dream of mine, but with the meagre salary I was earning, I had trouble even paying the RM1,000 deposit! So when I came across a new housing project – Fairview Park – up for sale, I had help from my mother. That was the easy part!
With the project still not off the drawing board, I had time to save up for the 30% down payment. I was told I had 3 years to do it. The double-story terrace house I was eyeing cost RM130,000. I learned later that the developer was an ex-bank manager from Sarawak. I thought he was reliable.
I saved, borrowed and took up a part-time work as a newspaper translator and a copy-writer. I paid RM10,000 in the first year. That was the biggest chunk of money I have ever handled. I went to the building site and saw my dream home taking shape. After another year or so, I paid the next RM10,000.
I kept track of the construction work. The construction reached the first floor, with visible roof trusses. I was motivated to save, and my mother encouraged and helped when I ran short.
It was the due to pay my third instalment of RM10,000. I visited the site to discover that the roof trusses had disappeared. The developers’ office said the contractor did not follow the building specifications and there was a slight delay.
Not suspecting anything, and worried that the money I had may be spent if I held on to it, I decided to pay. With the help of the developer’s office, I submitted an application for a bank loan to finance the rest of my purchase.
Weeks turned to months. By the time I next visited the site, I discovered to my horror that the house, my dream house, had been torn down along with the rest of the structures in the same row.
I asked the workers on site. They told me the houses were sinking! I was later told that the engineers and architects somehow failed to detect a subterranean stream that, when disturbed by piling, began to suck in anything built upon it. The buyers banded together to form an action group trying to find answers and seek compensation. But at that time when the housing development laws were inadequate in protecting buyers, the developer disappeared and along went out hard-earned money.
After several years, I received a letter from the Housing Controller (an officer in the Ministry of Local Government and Housing) to collect a cheque amounting less than RM2,000. That was what was left of my RM30,000 deposit.
The ‘refund’ came from a bond which the developer paid to the ministry to secure his developer permit. Looking back, I thought I acted dangerously alone. I never consulted my family members or any professionals. I paid blindly when I was asked to. I didn’t know my rights. However, housing laws in Sabah have since been tightened.
My only regret is that, while many of the housing projects abandoned during my trying times were subsequently revived, the land on which once sat Fairview Park was somehow taken over by another developer and new houses were built. This clearly showed that the ‘subterranean stream’ and the ‘sinking houses’ were untrue and was said to deceive the buyers!
I smelled rats, but what could a lone victim do? I counted myself lucky for not having weighed down by a housing loan unlike many other victims who have a loan instead of a house. The area, now known as Jalan Bundusan, is a thriving residential area. My RM130,000 house could have easily commanded RM600,000 today.
Abandoned housing is quite rare in Sabah because the laws are much better now, the officials are more alert and the buyers are more prudent. The industry is more competitive with many developers coming onto the scene.
My China-born mother, God bless her soul, never understood how I could have paid for something and never got it. Victims of unscrupulous property developers are everywhere. The shocking thing is one rarely read about a developer being taken to court for the breach of a contract. Big businesses always win, don’t they?
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