Disputes with Ex-landlords -- PART III

Continue.......

My husband sent him a text message after seeing no payment from him on 22nd January 2015. (See message attached).

This was his reply:-

To this couple, credibility is not applicable. Imagine, the wife (Tan) is an officer in a bank. 

After seeing the message, my husband told him that we will collect the balance  from his wife. Means that we will be meeting his wife at the bank the following day.

He must have knew the consequences and embarrassment Tan will be facing  if  we are going to meet her at the workplace (the bank). So, not too long after our message, he text us that he had bank in the money to our account. 

It is amazing to see how" irresponsible"this couple can be....

Police Report

The police report lodged at Ara Damansara Police Station on 16th January 2015 on:-





TAN AI CHIN (660901-10-6878) 
and  

l    LEE YUE MING (631122-06-5365)

the report stated that the couples (Tan Ai Chin and Lee Yue Ming) did not refund us our deposit at the agreed time and agreed amount. 

Add caption

Disputes with Ex-landlords --PART II

Continue......

 

We waited up until 16^th January when I decided to lodge a report at Police Station Ara Damansara. 

After a lengthy discussion and explanation with the officer, the police officer helped to make a phone call to him and wanted him to meet me at the station.( he did not answered my husband's calls and keep silence).

At around 4.40pm on 16^th January, he came to the police station. When I was coming down from my car with my two kids, he came and handed me a cheque. I was wondering why he didn’t settle this in front of the officer and inside the police station. When I looked at the cheque, I was puzzled.

The amount was RM9,310. It supposed to be RM10,050 after deducting the RM1,950 repairing cost. This mean he further deducted RM740 which he did not mentioned previously in his so called "quotation".

He argued that he did not agree an amount RM460 due to repairing cost of air cond which incurred 7 months ago in April 2014. This amount was actually deducted from the rental paid to him in June 2014.  

He said according to the contract, if no prior approval from landlord, the tenant could not deduct any repairing cost from rental. 

I think he might be in such a hurry to "think" of any possible costs to further deduct from our deposit, he definitely had forgotten he sent me a message last year agreeing on the deduction of repairing cost and even a " thank you" message to me in relation to solve the problem for him!!!! 


Proofs as below:-

 

Another thing to show that he was really in a hurry to simply put in a figure to deduct from our deposit. 

The bill amounting to RM460 . We will only get him to pay for the defect parts which is only RM260. In fact, we paid for the service charge RM200 cleaning fee in the bill.

The water element part replacement cost which he agreed to pay as well. 

So, where on earth he come out with the cost of RM460??????

I did not accept his cheque as I did not agree on the amount (RM9,310). Besides, the quotation he showed me was not a proper quotation . It was just a A4 paper with his own handwriting.

See the original hand written amount was RM9.310??  This amount written on the cheque he supposed to give me at the police station which I had rejected.

I told him that I will still need to continue to lodge the report. He raised his voice and asked me to go ahead with it. I brought my 2 kids into the police station and continue to do the necessary.

On the same evening at  5.59pm , on 16^th Jan,  he sent my husband a text message with pictures of :-

(i)        a CIMB cheque of RM9,460 (which is another different amount from the cheque he wanted to give me earlier on); (see, it was different again from the amount earlier at the police station. I think he might have wrongly calculated since he was in such a hurry to issue the cheque....hahahaha); he should have consulted his "banker wife" first before doing this......

 

(ii)          a handwritten quotation with so many changes made; (THIS SHOWED THAT THERE IS NO PROPER CONTRACTOR QUOTATION AS HE MENTIONED TO US THAT HE NEEDS TO GET THE CONTRACTOR QUOTATION EARLIER IN DEC 2014)

(iii)         a cheque deposit receipt at Maybank Ara Damanasara Branch.

 

My husband reverts to him that he will inform the Maybank to stop the cheque clearance. It is because we do not agree on the amount.

Again, he asked us to go ahead.

The above were all supported by evidence on the messages on our phones, police reports and tenancy agreement.

On 17^th January evening, an Police Inspector called us up to obtain further information from us in relation to our lodgment. We told him accordingly and given Mr. Lee contact to him upon request. He further stressed that if it couldn’t be resolved, we may have to bring the case to court.

In fact, my husband and I are ready to escalate this matter. I believed we are not the only one who had encountered the similar problems with landlords in Malaysia.

Imagine those expatriates who are back to their home country and couldn’t do anything with the landlords on the issues of deposits.

I believed that if we did not lodge the report on 16^th Jan, he will not pay us on the same day when he was called in by the police officer.

We will either being delayed on the refund for a longer period and maybe with a further inappropriate sum of deduction with no proper quotation (he didn’t provide us with a “real” quotation from the contractor). 

On 19^th January, my husband contacted Maybank branch in Kuantan requested them to return and not to clear the CIMB cheque from MADAM TAN AI CHIN and MR LEE YUE MING.

However, the branch officer told us that they have no right to reject the cheque as it is the duty of the clearing house to handle this.

Further to this, my husband sent him a message on 19^th January, telling him that we will appoint a lawyer to issue a letter of demand for the followings:-

1)   Refund of Deposits;

2)   The agreed original quotation and invoices on the repairing cost of RM1,950

 On the same day, we also issued a cheque amounting to RM9,460 and bank in to his joint account with MADAM TAN AI CHIN.

On 20^th January, the landlord called my husband and wanted to speak to him. My husband was in a meeting and did not want to have any conversation with him.

At around noon time, a message was sent to my husband read as follows:-

See here, who is wasting whose time??

Currently,there is no rules and legislation giving protection to tenants in Malaysia and to handle their complaints. Hence, no action can be taken on the BAD landlords.

We had been listening and reading news that landlord took action against bad tenants. What about in our situation here?

 ........to be continued .........

Disputes With Ex-landlords----PART I

Further to my previous post written on the disputes between my ex-landlords and us? Let me share with you our stories here. 

I am writing down everything which has taken place for the past week up until today. With all the text messages exchange between the landlord and us. 

The story is lengthy and I will post it into 3 different posting.....

We rented a condominium at Ara Hill Resort Condominium located at Ara Damansara, Petaling Jaya, for 2 years started from November 2012 to 31^st December 2014.

The landlords are :-

1     TAN AI CHIN (660901-10-6878)

l      LEE YUE MING (631122-06-5365)

Mr. Lee was a real estate agent (he had resigned 2-3 years ago according to Reapfield when I wrote them a complaint letter to solve the disputes).

Madam Tan Ai Chin is a Head of Department in a bank with its headquarter in Singapore. 

An acknowledge receipt was signed by Madam Tan Ai Chin on our deposits paid to them when we rented the condo. 

Two months before the expiry date in October 2014, we informed the landlord on the termination on the lease by giving 2 months’ notice and wanted to return the keys to him on 30^th or 31^st December as our tenancy agreement expires on such date.

However, he did not agree on that and requested us to settle earlier as he will travel between Christmas up to New Year. 

On 23rd Dec, 2014, 11am, my husband and Mr. Lee Yue Ming (the landlord) met at Ara Hill Condo to check the house condition and return the house keys accordingly.  During the handover, we highlighted to him that the LED ceiling lights at the master room are borken and need to be fixed. 

We gave him all the latest and up to date utility bills attached with the official receipts. We had cleared and paid all outstanding bills.

After he checked the toilets and such, he is ok with everything in the unit. 

We return the house keys to him and with his further confirmation that he will refund the deposits to us the week after 23^rd December which he had agreed earlier.  The deposits consist of 2 months rental and 1 month utilities. 

 



 

 


We then proceed to go back to Kuantan for praying ceremony for my late uncle who passed away in October 2014.

A week later, on 29^th December 2014, we confirmed that the landlord didn’t pay us.  

We followed up by messaging him. His reply was that he found the paint tear off on walls, scratches on wooden floor and the stain on the room doors need to be repaint and sanding. Further asked us to wait for another week for quotation from the contractor. 

On 2nd January, 2015, we texted him. Again, he asked us to wait until the following week.

On 6^th January, this man texted us and informed us of the following charges:-

1) floor sanding n painting RM750

2) patching n painting walls RM350

3)painting 2 wooden doors RM600

4) purchase n install 2 ceiling lights RM200

5) Remove glass laminate RM50

TOTAL: RM1,950

It was expensive if we looked at the above stated charges. We asked why the cost to repaint the wooden has to be so high. This man told us that the cost  would be RM500 per door and the price he quoted was actually low.

My husband didn’t ask him to show us the invoice from the contractor as we trusted he had the contractor’s quotation. 

Besides, we can't do anything as the deposits are in his hand.So, my husband told him to refund the balance to us since both parties has agreed on the  so-called "quotation".

There are two points here that we insisted to demand our deposits:-

(i) all utility bills had been settled and paid on 22^nd December 2014, a day before we return the keys and house to him; and 

(ii) he insisted at the first place that he need to get the contractor to give him the quotation re repairing. so, now he had the quotation and we had agreed to pay the RM1,950. 

So, we deemed that we have the right to claim our deposit back. 

However, this MAN told us that he will only return our deposits after all touch up is completed. (??????Why???)

My husband did not agree and asked why he needed to hold our balance and most important he agreed initially that if we return our keys 1 week earlier before expiry date and he will refund our deposit earlier.

He then further texted my husband that he will only refund RM5K next week ( means the week after  6^th January) and the balance before 30^th Jan.  

We sent him another message that we had already discharged our commitments and it is the normal practice that the landlord shall return our deposits once the tenants had discharged the commitments.

He had no response.

We started to worry that he might giving us more excuses to hold on our deposit and then charging us with all “irrelevant” costs once he refund the balance to us.

On the following day, 7^th Jan, we sent him a text to follow up. In return, he texted us a very “impolite” message which is irrelevant to what we demanded. The message sounds a bit “rough” and anger, saying that he will only refund all our monies before 30^th Jan.

My husband told him in the message that there is no point arguing and since he told us the contract said 30 days (he has been mentioning the 30 days period which had stated in the contract that we had to be bound by it)^.

*** Mr. Lee, the landlord, told us that the 30 days refund period was stated in the lease agreement. We later found out that there were nothing stated in the lease agreement. 

Again, he kept silence and no further response from him.

On 9^th January after returning from Thailand, we checked the tenancy contract but we could not find any clause mentioning the 30 days refund period which he had mentioned in his message.

My husband sent him a text informing him there is no clause mentioning the 30 days refund period.  And we requested him to refund all our balance by 12^th Jan, Monday.

He didn’t reply our message and keep silence.

To be continued............

Conflicts With the Ex-landlord

I am not sure whether anyone out there encounter the same problem. We had some problems with our landlord recently and he had been using "irrelevant" excuses to hold on our deposit of RM12,000.

He deducted quite a large sum from the deposit (more than a thousand ringgit) to compensate him the repairing cost which was not supported by any quotation (only his own hand written notes with many changes made) and no invoices from "so-called contractor". All was just his own handwritten figures on a piece of A4 size paper.

I went to the Ara Damansara police station to lodge a report. The landlord (Mr. Lee) was called in to the police station to discuss. However, when he saw me coming down from the car ( I need to go pick up my kids from tuition as the officer said Mr. Lee needs take 45 minutes to be there), he quickly walked out from the station and gave me a cheque amounting RM9,310.

I was quite shock at the moment as I did not expect he will return our deposit so fast. He has been keep delaying our payment and even did not pick up and reply our calls and messages. I believed if he was not called in by the police officer, I am sure he will still delay to refund us.

After I saw the figure on the cheque,  I decided not to accept it.

The amount  was not what he supposed to refund us. I told him accordingly.

He argued that he deducted an "amount"  from an invoice that we gave him in May 2014.  Oh my, the faulty air cond and water heater element problems were in April 2014. Now is 16th January 2015.


He stated that this is a repairing cost which he has not agreed and so he will not responsible for it.   However, this MAN has forgotten his message sent to our phone to ask us to deduct the said amount from our rental to him. He also forgotten he followed up with another "thank you" message to me for settling all these default issues for him.  


After seeing he has no intention to pay us what we had agreed earlier, I told him that I will continue with the report . He was furious and asked me to go ahead with the reporting.

However,  he did not even follow me into the police station to discuss all this in front of the officer.

I was not allow to lodge the report myself as the agreement was in my husband name. The officer asked me to come in again later that night with my husband. The officer asked me not to worry as he will try his best to help.

About an hour later that evening, my husband received a message from the landlord with 3 pictures:-

1) a  CIMB cheque issued by Tan Ai Chin (his wife) and Lee Yue Ming amounting to RM9,460; (this figure was AGAIN different from the cheque that he wanted to give me earlier at the police station)

2) His own handwritten quotation with many changes in figure;

3) a cheque deposit receipt from Maybank Ara Damansara.

My husband told him that this is not the figure we agreed 3 weeks ago and informed him that we will continue with the lodgment with the police officer at Ara Damansara.

The landlords are staying at Ara Damansara area. His wife , Tan Ai Chin is a Head of Department in a bank with its headquarter in Singapore. We were given a name card of hers two years ago. She was the one who signed the acknowledge receipt of our deposits payment to them in renting the condo.

Dear blogger, does anyone of you encountered the same problem or maybe your friends have been in my situation before?

Let me know what should I do to resolve this.

We had all the messages and text from him that still in our phone.  In fact, we already agreed for him to deduct certain sum without any "real" quotation from the landlords. However, they are just being too "greedy"!

When we demanded our deposits by keep sending messages to them as they did not reply our messages and not picking up calls.  We received some not too 'good" messages from them that was not supposed be written from the professionals like them (we assumed they are)

In their earlier messages, they stressed that they did it according to the contract. We are bound by it.  I had gone through the lease agreement over and over again. We could not find the clause that he mentioned.

I filed a complaint letter to the real estate company, Reapfield. They revert to me that the agent (who is also the landlord, MR LEE YUE MING) resigned 2-3 years ago. The company could not do anything with our problem and asked us to seek legal advice.

I am afraid that this landlord may use the same tricks again on other future tenants. Ara Hill Condominium is now becoming quite a popular stay for a number of expatriates families.

I am wondering why there is no rules and legislation that protecting the tenants' right in Malaysia.