The New Enhancement of Protection under HDA
Property Law and Institutional Framework Recent legislation (Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Regulations 1989) (HDCLR 1989) has seen significant changes in safeguarding the homebuyers’ interests as the previous Housing Developers (Control and Licensing) Act 1966 (Act 118) only protects up to a certain point and widely known for its incomprehensive law in governing the housing industry. To begin with, HDCLR 1989 only applies to Peninsular Malaysia, while East Malaysia is governed under Sabah Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Enactment, 1978 and Sarawak Housing Developers (Control and Licensing) Ordinance of 1993 due to the status quo that remains until today. The Federal Court’s decision in Khau Daw Yau v Kin Nam Realty Development Sdn Bhd [1983] 1MLJ 335 has substantiated that HDCLR 1966 is designed to protect the homebuyers against irresponsible developers. Essentially, the act mainly protects the purchasers from the r...