Today my mother called about problems with her flat in Hong Kong again.
Since she collected the keys 15 years ago, she has done countless fixing and touch-up of defects in her apartment.
Two years ago, the neighbor downstairs complained about water seepage from her master toilet. She spent thousands of dollars to fix it. Next came the second toilet. Again they had to dig up the place, replace the pipes and redo the waterproof. Shortly after, there was complaint about leakage from the kitchen.
Last week the management office told her that water seepage from her balcony damaged the false ceiling of her neighbor’s unit downstairs. The neighbor just spent a considerable sum of money renovating their flat.
And this was only the water proofing problem.
She was really fed up with the endless fixing of defects. “This project is a government subsidized housing. Yet the building quality is so poor that the flat is full of defects.” She added, “If this is in Singapore, the government will never allow this to happen.”
How well are home buyers protected in Singapore?
I immediately kept quiet. I didn’t tell her that residents of The Seaview condominium just lost their case against the developer, the architect and the main contractor for $32 million worth of defects. The court decided that all three parties were not liable for the negligent acts of the independent contractors.
That implies, in the future if a developer and its main contractor refuse to rectify the defects of their projects, the buyers can only go after the many independent subcontractors one by one.
I also didn’t tell her that, in general Singaporeans are sophisticated customers and know their consumer rights, though they can react differently depending on situations.
We can spend $50 in a restaurant and complain about the bad service. We can ask for a full refund of a $500 electric appliance because it is not working properly. We can demand a discount off a $5,000 tour package because it doesn’t go to all the sightseeing places as promised.
But when we buy a $1.5 million property with a $1.2 million loan payable for the next 30 years, being one out of hundreds of owners in the same project, our bargaining power is very low.
In fact, most buyers have no idea what are noticeable or hidden defects, not to mention lodging complaints about them.
So when problems start to surface after the 1-year warranty period a few years later, many are shocked; some are angry; most have no clue; and the rest just wonder what happened.
Poor building quality affecting value of properties
In his article ‘Makeshift patching will not fix defects of Singapore housing market’ (The Business Times, April 21, 2016), Ku Swee Yong, CEO of Century 21 Singapore, mentioned that poor home construction quality is damaging the reputation and affecting the value of Singapore properties.
“Cases of building defects in new developments reported in the media include million-dollar homes such as The Sea View, RiverParc Residence, The Sail @ Marina Bay and The Coast in Sentosa Cove … Such a ruling (of The Seaview case) incentivises developers and main contractors to outsource more of their work. Coupled with the increasing incidences of shoddy workmanship and building defects, the finished quality of real estate might drop, as would its value.”
Mr. Ku’s emphasized the same fact in his new book Weathering A Property Downturn – Defensive Plays for Real Estate Investors:
“Today, we see higher incidences of residential properties completed with shoddy workmanship, even within prestigious developments in the luxury districts. Some defects are not obvious at the TOP handover and may remain hidden for more than a year. For example, sloppy waterproofing will lead to seepage or sewerage issues and poor installation of dry partition walls will reveal cracks after more than a year.”
“Bad workmanship is not just getting more apparent in private residential developments. Some of the recent incidents in public housing discussed in Parliament included: defects and design flaws in DBSS (Design, Build and Sell Scheme) flats such as Centrale 8, Pasir Ris One and Trivelis, and BTO (Build-To-Order) flats in Chua Chu Kang, Pungol and Bukit Panjang. Residents complained about overly narrow corridors, cracked walls, plaster slabs falling off the façade of HDB blocks, uneven flooring, leaks and overflowing toilets.”
Raising the standard of construction quality
I agree with Mr Ku that it’s time developers and contractors raised the standards of construction quality in Singapore. Boosting on state-of-the-art designs and congratulating each other on building awards are not going to earn the trust from home buyers.
“Perhaps we should postpone our building awards to be handed out only after the homes are completed, and have proven to provide comfort and enjoyment for the residents for more than 10 years. Government agencies, designers, architects, developers, builders and property managers need to raise their standards on build quality for investors and home buyers.”
Stop turning a deaf ear to the complaints from property buyers and investors. Stop giving developers and contractors excuses to shrink from their responsibilities. Stop allowing the bad sheep to continue damaging the reputation of the industry.
Otherwise, more and more buyers who have spent their hard-earned dollars and life savings in their homes will eventually find that they are buying flats built with shoddy workmanship, poor quality materials and sub-standard fittings. And Singapore properties will carry a bad name hereafter.
Raising public awareness about home defects
We never study about buying a home in school. Most people know nothing about defects in TOP units. Those buying resale units can’t tell the differences between a hairline crack and a structural crack.
Tan Wee Kwang, Director of Absolute Inspection, worked 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to inspect TOP units and resale properties in Singapore. Inspecting, lodging and rectifying home defects are labor-intensive and time-consuming. And there are simply too many poor quality projects, too many TOP units waiting to be inspected, too many defects found in a TOP unit, and too many owners who have no clue.
The only solution to solve this problem in the long-term is to educate home buyers and property investors about construction quality and building defects.
It is easy to open a fish steamboat restaurant, with customers making reservations weeks in advance for a meal to be fed with fish. But if we teach people how to fish and how to prepare the dishes, we feed them for a lifetime. They will in turn share the skills with others and promote fishing or cooking fish. This is the best way to create promote the art and raise industry standards of fishing and cooking.
Property Club Singapore has the idea of running a workshop to educate home buyers and owners about defect inspection for long. But we must find an independent defect inspector who has no conflict of interest by not working with a developer, contractor, renovation company, property agency, etc. Wee Kwang from Absolute Inspection is a professional defect who has the passion, patience, honesty and integrity that I am looking for.
Finally, the Home Defects Inspection Hands-On Workshop is ready. We will go together to visit a unit that just obtains its TOP. We will show the participants onsite what is shoddy workmanship, where are the defects, how to spot them, why they can go unnoticed, how to use different equipment for inspection, and what can be done to rectify the defects.
We will charge a fee a small percentage of what might cause the owner if a future defect pops up, and a fraction of the price of hiring a defect inspector, yet high enough to ensure that there won’t be any no-show for the workshop.
Whether you are buying a new or resale unit, an HDB or private property, if you are serious about identifying defects in properties, and want no surprises of hidden defects in your home years down the road, join us for the Home Defects Inspection Hands-On Workshop this Saturday.
If you need help in home defects inspection, be it TOP unit or resale property, feel free to send us your request.
due process of inspection by qualify, certified site supervisor (resident engineer, resident technical officer under the QPS) to be adhered to during the construction stage. it is too late and costly to repair and rework after being occupied by residents. QPS are supposed to be independent and ensure construction adhere to dwgs and specification. nowadays, QPS are mostly under the contract of main contractor, so it is difficult for the RE, RTO to be independent to discharge his duty to ensure proper construction and quality.
I think inspecting the project for building safety is one thing. But ensuring the construction quality of the facilities and the units is another thing. We have no doubt about the former because the project must comply with all the requirements of BCA before obtaining the TOP certificate. However, there is no regulation or standard to minimize the construction defects to ensure handover of high building quality facilities and units to buyers. The only protection is just a one-year warranty for the developers or contractors to fix all the defects.
due process of inspection by qualify, certified site supervisor (resident engineer, resident technical officer under the QPS) to be adhered to during the construction stage. it is too late and costly to repair and rework after being occupied by residents. QPS are supposed to be independent and ensure construction adhere to dwgs and specification. nowadays, QPS are mostly under the contract of main contractor, so it is difficult for the RE, RTO to be independent to discharge his duty to ensure proper construction and quality.
I think inspecting the project for building safety is one thing. But ensuring the construction quality of the facilities and the units is another thing. We have no doubt about the former because the project must comply with all the requirements of BCA before obtaining the TOP certificate. However, there is no regulation or standard to minimize the construction defects to ensure handover of high building quality facilities and units to buyers. The only protection is just a one-year warranty for the developers or contractors to fix all the defects.
What is the point of educating consumers how to identify defects while even able Rob identified, the singapore court let the developer and the contractors off the hook.
You can’t give up on learning just because you can’t win every case in court. To be fair, even with occasional case lost, the Singapore laws did help many owners to get back their justice.
In fact, most cases are minor and can be solved amiably. We don’t even need to consider taking the developer or the builder to court. The important thing is to know what/where are defects, how to work with the developer to fix them, etc. The more informed you are, the better you can protect yourself and get the thing done smoothly.
What if after 1.5years handover ,done water seepage out from conceal walk pipe link to the sink pipe adjoining ?
During warrenty first three months the kitchen floor was flooded & developer sent cleaner to dry up the floor ,contractor came commenting it was the adjoining cap on the sink loosen
Now water seepage resurface ,Private Contractot said it was the builder’ fault on conceal wall piping (connect to the sink )not properly screwed tight.
Developer rep said we had no documentary proof kept at mcst office that such incident happening .
If it was the same scenario ,developer will pay for the cost repairing .
Do we have ground to pin the developer for the replace the faulty loosed pipe behind the conceal wall behind the kitchen
If the warranty period is over, it is difficult to claim it from the developer. Unless you can ask around and find other residents who experience the same problem to prove that this is not an individual incident.
What if developer closed striking off already? While water seepage found after that? What to do?
The developer warranty period is for 12 months only. After that, the owners are responsible to fix any defect at their own cost.
But water seepage usually appear after one year more… How come I saw 5/10 years warranty for HDB? Mine is condo, just surprised the difference.