REAL Estate and Housing Developers Association Malaysia (Rehda) will be proposing to the Government that insurers provide insurance schemes to developers to cover abandoned projects, said president Datuk Jeffrey Ng Tiong Lip.

Datuk Jeffrey Ng.

''This proposal will be an alternative solution to solve the problem,'' Ng said at a press conference on issues affecting the housing industry in Petaling Jaya last Friday.

Ng said when projects were abandoned there should be immediate plans to ensure that house buyers were protected via insurance.

In such case, the insurance company could appoint some other developers to complete the abandoned projects or if they were still in the earlier stage of development, house buyers should get a refund on whatever costs that they had incurred, Ng said.

He said Rehda would hold talks with the Finance Ministry, Housing Development and Local Government Ministry and insurance companies on this issue in the near future.

Ng said Rehda supported the Government’s effort to protect the industry from errant developers who abandoned projects in the past and would urge the Housing Development and Local Government Ministry to publish the list of blacklisted developers.

He said Rehda was willing to offer its nationwide branch network to assist the ministry in monitoring projects that were on the verge of being abandoned.

Source : The Star  06/08/2004