Builders may have to pay premium first
Published on: Friday, August 05, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: Property developers will be compelled to pay the premium for land conversion before they can obtain the Occupational Certificates (OC) for their projects.Special Tasks Minister Datuk Teo Chee Kang said it is hoped this requirement will help solve the long-standing strata title problem."A special committee to specifically look this problem had come up with an interim report and the State Cabinet had been briefed accordingly.ADVERTISEMENT "In our findings, we found that there are various causes for the delay in the issuance of strata titles. Firstly, there is a lack of urgency among developers to apply for sub-divisions and secondly, they delayed the payment of premiums for conversion from Native Titles to Country Lease titles in cases where the development involved NT lands."We also found that developments by phases also contributed to the delay because the law requires that the whole development is completed before you can amalgamate all the titles concerned, and subsequently, sub-divide," he said.The committee, he said, had proposed two types of solutions to the problems, namely a quick-fix solution without involving amendment to the legislation and a long-term solution where amendment to the current legislation through the State Assembly would be needed.ADVERTISEMENT As a quick-fix solution, he said, the committee has proposed a new concept of outline planning brief where the developer will only be required to submit the most necessary detailed drawings such as the density, zoning and other basic requirements to get the development plan approved."In situations where the plans involve NT, conversion of the title will be the issue. Even on CL land, there would be issues of conversion in terms of land use where rezoning would be required. All these can be addressed in the outline planning brief stage.
ADVERTISEMENT
"So developers will be able to know whether the conversion would be approved before they prepare the details of the development plans. That would speed up the approval of that plan," he said.The other quick-fix solution would require developers to actually obtain the permission for conversion even before the actual development plan can be approved. "So there will be two stages for the approval of DP. Firstly the outline planning stage and then once the outline is approved, the developer can then, based on that outline plan, apply for conversion. "And the approval for that outline plan is still subject to the developer filing in the detailed plans and the detailed plans still have to comply with the by-laws and others," he said.At the moment, one of the reasons why strata titles is delayed is because of the non-payment of premium for conversion. Even when they have received an offer for conversion of the land, some developers, for some reason, chose not to pay up the premium. Unless the premiums are paid, the land cannot be converted and without conversion, all the titles cannot be amalgamated and subsequently sub-titled. "What we are aiming is, by the time the OC is issued, the strata title is also ready for the buyers. In order to do this, we will allow the surveyors to step in and do the survey works. Once the superstructure of the building is completed, no need to wait for the practical completion of the building before the survey work can be done. "So survey work can be done earlier, so that they can get the survey done prior to the issuance of the OC," he said.Towards this end, he said, payment for the premium will be imposed on developers before they can get the OC. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
Daily Express Malaysia
"My committee is looking into how we can define the outline planning, what consists of outline plan. We are looking into that and I believe in the short future, we can submit it to the State Cabinet for approval," he said.