Ching, Tan & Associates

On the court record

Ching, Tan & Associates is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan) are concentrated in housing-development and liquidated-damages litigation. The recurring subject is the late delivery of vacant possession and the calculation of liquidated ascertained damages under statutory sale and purchase agreements. In several matters the firm has argued the interpretation of Clause 35A and Schedule A of the standard agreement, and the point from which the relevant period, whether 36 or 42 months, begins to run for the computation of liquidated damages, resisting or advancing claims by purchasers of commercial and residential units.

A distinctive strand concerns whether particular units fall within the protective regime at all. The firm has appeared in a matter holding that a Small Office Versatile Office (SOVO) unit is not defined as housing accommodation under section 3 of the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act 1966 and so falls outside that Act's purview, with the contra proferentem rule applied against the developer who drafted the agreement. Its work also engages the effect of an extension of time granted by the housing authority and the applicability of the Federal Court decision in Obata-Ambak Holdings on the sustainability of a statutory claim under the Schedule, together with summary-judgment claims under Order 14 of the Rules of Court 2012 for late delivery, where the developer's conversion and building-plan approvals bore on the outcome, and appeals decided by reference to stare decisis and earlier binding authority. In one appeal the firm relied on the extension of time granted by the housing controller and the Federal Court's guidance to resist a statutory liquidated-damages claim, arguing that the purchasers' entitlement had to be assessed against the varied completion period rather than the original schedule. The reported profile is that of a specialist housing-development litigation practice, engaged with the interpretation of statutory sale and purchase agreements and the boundaries of the licensing regime.