Good and timely maintenance is key to continuous appreciation of property price. However, this is an issue with many affordable high-rise units today. Without a strong management team to collect the monthly fees from the owners, there will be shortfalls and these would meant maintenance suffers. After a while, the wear and tear becomes critical and by then the issues becomes impossible to fix even assuming majority of all owners pay after that. This is why when we build the 100,000 affordable homes in 2019, we need to plan in advance and not be caught only when maintenance starts to suffer due to unpaid maintenance fees. Fortunately for us, our Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin says the ministry is prepared.
Article in edgeprop.my here Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said the team members under the Ministry itself would be offered training to look into the management of affordable housing projects such as their upkeep and the maintenance charge collection. She said, “The management of the properties is very important because if you’re talking about the B40 group, this category comprises working class people. So they can’t afford to pay high maintenance fees and spend time to manage the properties.” She said the formation of said team was in line with the National Community Policy or Dasar Komuniti Negara (DKN). DKN was formulated by the Housing and Local Government Ministry to improve the living standar of public affordable housing residents. She said the National Housing Policy outlined five areas of focus, 16 strategies and 57 action plans. Moreover, her focus for the next five years would be to help the B40 group to own a home. Article in edgeprop.my here
We still need to come back to the financial part. Let’s understand that if the maintenance fee is RM100 and it’s one month overdue, the owner may still be able to pay. However, if we did not collect it on time and we only chase for payments after 6 months, then RM600 is a huge issue to many owners. Reason? They may have spent the money on something else which DEPRECIATES. Speed is key when it comes to collection. After collection, comes the maintenance part. This team which will be formed must have a good understanding of facility management as well because if they did not spend the money CORRECTLY, it will spell trouble in the future for the high-rise affordable development. Have faith. Happy following.
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Article written and edited by Charles. News article summarised by Dina Batrisyia.
written on 26 Feb 2019
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