D AMAN CRIMSON MANAGEMENT CORPORATION

On the court record

Instructive on how a strata management corporation asserts common-property rights against a developer, spanning statutory characterisation, indefeasibility and interlocutory injunction practice.

D Aman Crimson Management Corporation appears in the reported judgments as a strata management corporation litigating as plaintiff in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) in a series of connected disputes over a mixed strata development. Acting for the parcel proprietors it represents, the corporation's proceedings turn on the legal characterisation of areas within the development and on protecting what it contends is common property.

The central controversy is whether certain areas constitute common property vested in the management corporation, or whether they were lawfully designated and dealt with as accessory parcels by the developer. In one decision the corporation contended that the disputed areas formed part of the common property and had been wrongly alienated, while the developer and related defendants maintained that the parcels were validly created and transferred under the statutory regime governing strata developments. A companion matter framed the same question around a specific parcel, asking whether it was intended to be common property under the Strata Titles Act 1985, the Town and Country Planning Act 1976, the Building and Common Property (Maintenance and Management) Act 2007 and the approved building plan, and whether a subsequent registered proprietor held an indefeasible title under section 340 of the National Land Code — with attention to whether the land office had exercised due diligence in accepting the developer's Form 1 application.

A further decision arose on the interlocutory plane. An ex parte injunction obtained by the corporation was tested against the American Cyanamid principles — whether there were bona fide serious issues to be tried and whether damages were an adequate remedy — and an application to set the ex parte order aside succeeded in part for want of full and frank disclosure and an undertaking as to damages, under Order 29 rule 1(2A) of the Rules of Court 2012. The decisions are instructive on how a management corporation asserts and defends common-property rights against a developer.