To people looking to buy an AsiaQuest - Kiaramas property through Golden Vista Realty:
My purchase and subsequent rent-out of my Gateway apartment through Golden Vista Realty team has been a bad experience, explained as follows:
- my initial purchase of the apartment through Shawn Ng had been a relatively straight-forward exercise;
- the rental of the apartment was handled by Mike Heng who got the rental off on the wrong foot by handing over the keys after only picking up RM$ 2,000++ of a RM 7,350 deposit (3 months rental @ RM$2100 + 1/2 month rental for water deposit);
- the rental from the Iranian as expected was late every single month and I had to call Mike Heng (and also Joanne Soh and subsequently Betty Chan) to get these people to chase up the tenant until he paid up - YES, every single month of the rental;
- electricity bill was unpaid for 6 months (though luckily this was discovered) and water bills also unpaid for 6 months;
- The tenency agreement was provided by GVR but I learned the hard way that it was not enforceable for the following reasons given to me:
(i) tenant chose not to pay rent in the last 2 months, choosing to say rental will come from security deposit and his decision is final whereupon there is nothing anybody can do (even though it is clearly stated that the security deposit cannot be taken as rental);
(ii) I was advised by GVR - Mike Heng that if the rental is not paid, then I was supposed to be able to get the Gateway Management Office to bar the tenant access cards and also car transponder. Mike told me he got this advice from the Supervisor in-charge at Gateway Management Office only for the Supervisor to tell me later that the Management Office cannot do it because I have paid my Conservancy Service Charges on time and they have no grounds to block (What kind of a joke and rubbish is this ??). In effect, GVR - Gateway Management Office are effectively telling me that they have no means of enforcing the tenency agreement that GVR-Mike Heng prepared for me to sign. Why get the owner to sign an agreement that they are not able to (help to) enforce later ? Is it appropriate and professional to get your client, who has to pay you commissions, to sign off on an agreement that is useless ??
Still in spite of the constant fustrations during the rental, I had kindly agreed on the request of GVR-Betty Chan to allow the new owner to sign a direct tenency agreement before the sale is officially completed ( because the new Purchaser desperately wanted to keep the tenant ), and look what I get for my kindness - that of the GVR property agent talking directly to my lawyer without even consulting me first !!! And for what ? For the miserable RM 1,050 water deposit when I had to call international long-distance every single month of the 1-year tenency to GVR to get them to chase up on the payment of the rental ??? Do you know what is decorum, professionalism and ethics - GVR ???
And when the sale transaction is finally completed after 5 months, it still takes a long long 6 weeks before the Gateway Management Office, also reporting into the boss of GVR, before they prepare the cheque for the deposits with their office to be returned; YES, IT TAKES THEM 6 WEEKS TO DO A SIMPLE REFUND to you when you are no longer the registered owner of the apartment. And Michelle from that office \"extended her goodwill to deposit the cheque into my bank account within a few days\" but when it has not happened after \"a few days\", she told me that her definition of a few days is ONE WEEK (yes, just for depositing a cheque) and that she still cannot offer any definitive timeline other then that it will still be \"after a few days\", which is after the first \"a few days\" has passed. No class at all, is there ?
I have always wondered if I had bought a Sunrise property (or for that matter, another developer property), whether I would be put through the same really lousy experience as I had gone through with the experience of owning and renting an Asiaquest - Kiaramas property.
For those Singaporeans or other foreigners looking to own Malaysia properties, especially Asiaquest properties, you may want to think about the issues / challenges faced and determine if you have the solutions before proceeding. For me personally, ONE TIME DEALING WITH THE RUBBISH OF GOLDEN VISTA REALTY AND GATEWAY MANAGEMENT OFFICE IS TRULY ENOUGH.
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