Mounting Costs Puts New Management Committee in a Quandary

800 Good Year Court 8 Residents in a Quandary as Management Committee Struggles with Mounting Costs

EIGHT hundred unit owners and occupants of Subang Perdana Good Year Court 8 in USJ14 may face a disruption to the daily services rendered by the management committee as mounting costs and debts “cripples” its day-to-day operations.

Subang Perdana Good Year Court 8 management committee chairman Andrew Law said the mounting monthly costs coupled with arrears owed by unit owners was making it hard for the team to continue servicing the property which included 600 medium cost units and 198 low-cost units.

“The new management committee took over in September 2022 and found that the monthly collection of maintenance fees was poor and there was a debt of RM400,000.”

“We only had RM30,000 cash-in-hand. To make matters worse, the new management committee did not receive any proper financial records from the previous committee when we took over, making it very difficult to reconcile almost four years of records before we took over,” he said to SJ ECHO.

The management had put up a notice dated June 6 2023, informing residents that there may be a disruption to utilities (electricity and water). It also called for residents and unit owners to attend a Town Hall Meeting on June 11 2023 at 10am to update them on the status of the service providers and financial status.

According to Andrew, the new management committee had managed to settle the debt accrued until 2022 but was now facing another shortfall from January to May 2023.

“We had an Emergency General Meeting in January 2023 to propose increasing the maintenance fees but residents opposed it.”

“We are also in the dark on the current financial standing on the MC as the management company which had its services terminated on Mac 31 2023 did not hand over the records to the new MC,” he added.

Andrew said the MC’s priority was now to solve the shortfall in collection of maintenance fees first before pursuing avenues to get its hands on the financial records for the past four years.

“We have to recover what’s owing to the management committee from the medium cost units. We have almost 20-30% of unit owners who owe us their fees.”

“The low-cost units are also a challenge as some have not even paid a single cent since day one which is almost 20 years ago,” he said.

Andrew said the MC had also been in touch with the Commissioner of Buildings (COB) and had sought their advise on moving forward.

“We need about RM90,000 per month to maintain the gated and guarded medium cost units but our collection can only touch RM72,000 per month.”

“To be sustainable, we need to increase the maintenance fees by RM30 per unit and also increase the car park rental bay fees to be able to make ends meet,” he said.

For the short term, Andrew said the MC may have to resort to using funds in the Sinking Fund account; recover arrears from defaulters in the mid-term and increase maintenance fees in the long term.

He hoped that residents will show up for the Town Hall Meeting this Sunday June 11 2023 at 10am for the MC to explain the scenario to them.

“We will need to convene another EGM to pass any resolutions proposed to tackle this issue,” he added.