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.
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