On 19th February, we received a question from Tony Tan as below:
When we buy shop office/commercial property and we have defect which develop is slow or seems unwilling to do something, is there any tribunal we can turn to? What is the option for us? My shop office has been handover nearly 9 months. TQ.
Please be advised that terms of sale and purchase agreement (“SPA”) of a commercial building are not governed under the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act 1966 (“HDA”). Therefore, the terms for defect liability of such SPA may be different from one case to the other.
The terms on developer’s defect liability in the SPA need to be perused in order to determine on your rights in demanding the developer to make good any defects.
In general, if the developer breaches its obligations under the SPA, you are entitled to file a legal suit against the Developer in civil court. There isn’t any tribunal set for this kind of claims and the Tribunal for Homebuyers Claims handles only claims from brought by a homebuyer under the HDA.