It's been 5 approaching 6 months since we first made our purchase of the apartment, we've yet to get the keys to the house. I don't know in other countries how long will the process take but it can't possibly take 6 months long, not for sub sales or second hand purchase at least. If it's a new development, that's different. The worst is, despite having a deadline stated in the SPA, given 3 months + 1 month extended with interest charge to the buyer, in the event the buyer has delayed in any form during the process, none to the damn seller, in Malaysia, it's ok to look pass through the deadline in the agreement. I've heard countless of times people telling me, the bank is slow to release the payment. That's not what I observe. In our cases, it's how inefficient and unreliable the lawyers are at their job! I'm a little unhappy with my lawyers too, reason being when the agreement was drawn up by my lawyers, in the event we cannot meet the payment deadline after 3 months, the sellers would automatically need to give an extended period of 1 month with interest charge to the buyers (in this case us) in the event we as the buyer has delayed the process and has failed to get the payment to release to the sellers on time. But none to the sellers side, if it is them that has delayed the whole process, what will be given to us, is extended period, nothing charged to them. What a load of BS. As this is my first property purchase, there are a lot of things I don't know, thus I leave my trust in my lawyers to protect the interest of their client, which is us, not the sellers. Now that the sellers' lawyers has delayed over and over and over again. The first time by 52 freaking days when the bank's (we applied for housing loan) lawyer requested for some documents to which the sellers' lawyer are to provide, no word from them for 52 days and when they finally gave the documents, it was wrong! How stupid can one be? And how frustrating is that for us? I'm not even
gonna go into the race card. It's obvious in Malaysia which race are the
laziest. And it's exactly cases like these where a label is given to them for being lazy and unreliable and inefficient. That was just for the first payment release. Short explanation: The sellers still owe their bank money from the loan they took. So, the loan we, the buyer now take from a different bank, would have to first settle the amount they owe to their bank and the remaining balance of their profit made from the sale would be release to the sellers, as second payment. So, right after much delay the first payment release and the bank's lawyer advised us that it would take another month for the second payment to be release provided the sellers' lawyers EFFICIENTLY get the necessary documents required by the bank. And as expected again, the sellers' lawyers delay. When our lawyers called to ask what's the progress like, I don't know what kinda fucking dumb firm can give answers like 'Ohhh, the officer in charge of the case has been on leave for days and nobody knows when she will be back. We haven't seen her for days.". WTF right? And how fucked up is that coming from a professional law firm. Is that even our problem? And over the next few days, we were told ' The officer in charge of our unit has quit her job'. The worst being, it doesn't look like the sellers give two shits when calls are made to her to complain. When I speak to a friend of mine who has experience in properties, she asked if it's stated in my agreement that if the sellers lawyers delay the process, we would be compensated. OBVIOUSLY NO! As it turns out, there can be such clause in an agreement to protect the buyers. She said only smart lawyers would make sure there would be such clauses to protect their clients. Clearly, my lawyers are pretty dumb. And this is where my frustration comes in with my lawyers. Already when the first payment release, we would need to start paying interest to the bank, on top of our current rent, if the sellers' lawyers delay as they like with no interest charged to them, obviously, the losing parties here are the buyers. We need to wait months after months after months helplessly not being able to do anything, we need to start paying our loan and rent at the same time while the sellers get away with delaying for as long as they like. So when I question my lawyers why didn't they put such clause in to protect us? I'm not trying to earn money from the sellers for wanting to have the clause, but it's to avoid either party from delaying for too long. I'm sure if there was indeed such clauses in the agreement, the sellers would've taken the effort to follow up with their lawyers more often to avoid any interest being charge to them like how we wouldn't want to be charge any interest. Here's the sorta dumb reply I get from my lawyers.
"Your main concern as a buyer are the following three things:-
1) to get a good title to the property;
2) to get vacant possession to the property; and
3) to make sure there is no late payment
interest if the lateness is not caused by you.
And the main concern for the Vendor is the money that he is getting back from the sale of the property.
In your case, the late compliance by the Vendor has in turn extended the time frame for your
bank to disburse payment to them. Now the only concern is to get the keys to the property. We have been doing this for you but the Vendor's lawyer are not responding.
The standard conveyancing procedure in Malaysia specifies that if the seller
delays then you get more time to pay him (he does not give you interest). Your ultimately recourse if the delay gets out of control is either:-
a) sue him in court for an order to force him to comply; or
b) cancel the deal and get back your money along with compensation equivalent to 10% of the purchase price.
We recommend that you call the vendor yourself as we are not allowed to speak with him to tell him about the delay."
First, why isn't getting the property on time my concern as a buyer? Nobody likes
buying something and having to wait forever to receive it. I'm not complaining that they're doing a lousy job. I'm just not entirely happy for not having the clause stated in the agreement cause with that clause stated, we could've avoided such LOOOOONNNGGG delay and I'm pretty damn sure they know it, and if they could redo the agreement, they would've put in the clause. And I'm sure they've got tons of experience drawing up properties Sales and Purchase Agreement and have probably come across situations like ours so it's their responsibility as a hired lawyer to ensure the interest of their clients are protected! While I really appreciate them for being really efficient and timely and for doing their job, if they fucked up even a teeny wee bit, they should have just offer an apology. I hate it when people come back with an army tank of defenses instead of admitting that they should've put in that clause. Secondly, it took us soooo long to look for an affordable property, and 5 months since we last made our down payment for the unit, the price for other units has gone up by 15 - 20%, why the fuck would we want to cancel the deal? If I do indeed shit money for a living, I would A) sue the sellers for the fun of it and B) cancel the deal to make the sellers life miserable. But I don't. I'm not left with any options here except to go with the flow. Like I said, as a buyer, we're clearly the losing parties.I didn't even bother to reply my lawyer's email because from the sound of their reply to my queries, clearly, lawyers don't back down and would argue their ass off despite being wrong, and they can't offer any apologies. I don't wanna waste my time arguing with lawyers who A) think they're always right and B) for being useless, unreliable and inefficient. Lawyers, you're on my blacklist.
