New ruling sees high-rise quit-rent charged to unit owners

About 200 representatives from JMBs and management committees in Shah Alam attended the briefing on the new individual quit-rent in Shah Alam.

JOINT management bodies (JMB) and management committees of stratified buildings in Shah Alam were briefed on new individual quit-rent in Selangor during a seminar.

The individual quit-rent replaces the quit-rent charged to JMBs of stratified buildings on June 1.

Instead of billing the building management, the Selangor Land and Mines Department will charge the quit-rent to each unit owner.

Previously, the quit-rent was divided and paid by unit owners through maintenance fees collected by each building management.

But there were many cases of unit owners not paying the monies owed, and the burden fell onto the building management.

A representative from the department briefed about 200 JMBs, management committees and developers’ representatives at the seminar in Wisma MBSA in Shah Alam yesterday.

Shah Alam City Council (MBSA) deputy secretary Rosli Bakar said the event served as a platform to inform the attendees about their responsibilities and to share ideas as well as their concerns.

Rosli said there were 560 strata housing schemes in Shah Alam, with 87,000 units.

He said many problems that cropped up in strata buildings had increased yearly.

They comprised limited parking spaces, high maintenance cost, expensive utility repairs and poor strata management due to lack of cooperation between management and unit owners as well as poor cleanliness.

“The complaints we received this year were more than half of last year,” he said.

The city council’s Commissioner of Buildings received 632 complaints last year ranging from financial, management and administration issues. It received 482 complaints this year.

MBSA building department head Badrul Hisham Hussain said the city council had done its best.

“We address complaints on cleanliness and small management issues, but we usually advise residents to forward other complaints to the Strata Management and Housing Tribunal,” he said.

Attendees were also briefed on the role and responsibilities of the Housing and the Strata Management Tribunal as well as procedure in filing claims.