Rohana Binti Ngah

On the court record

Grounded in the law of contract in housing and property transactions — defect liability, frustration, specific performance and the interpretation of sale and purchase agreements.

Rohana Binti Ngah's reported appearances, all in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), engage housing development, contract and land law. As counsel for a defendant she acted in a housing-development dispute concerning defects in a completed property. The claim engaged the sale and purchase agreement — including its clauses on vacant possession, the certificate of completion and compliance, and rectification — and raised electrical defects, breach of contract and negligence. The court had to consider the duty to mitigate, the reasonableness of a refusal to allow rectification, and the several heads of loss claimed: liquidated ascertained damages, repair costs, loss of use, and distress and inconvenience, against the backdrop of the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) framework and questions of concurrent liability in contract and tort.

In a further matter she appeared as counsel for the plaintiff in a contractual dispute where the defence invoked the doctrine of frustration. The court, in Malay, framed the burden as resting on the party seeking to rely on "doktrin kekecewaan" (the doctrine of frustration) to adduce evidence showing that the agreement had become impossible or unlawful to perform. The case also touched land law, the court noting that in computing the period of a tenancy or lease, only the initial term falls to be taken into account.

She also acted as counsel for a defendant in a matter concerning declarations sought on the strength of agreed terms said to have been established through an exchange of letters, and an order for specific performance of contractual obligations, including an extension of time under sale and purchase agreements, engaging the rules on judgments requiring an act to be done within a fixed time. Across these matters, Rohana Binti Ngah's practice is grounded in the law of contract as it operates in housing and property transactions — defect liability, frustration, specific performance and the interpretation of sale and purchase agreements.