HUNZA PROPERTIES Sdn Bhd

On the court record

Shows how control of a mixed strata development is contested at once on statutory management structure, contempt and appellate stays under the Strata Management Act 2013.

The Hunza Properties companies appear in the reported judgments as developer-side parties in a sustained dispute with a joint management body over the governance of a mixed development, with matters in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan). The litigation concerns the legality of a bifurcated management structure and the balance of control between developer, commercial parcel owners and residential proprietors.

The central questions of principle were argued on appeal. The Court of Appeal addressed the validity of a bifurcated management structure in a mixed development under the Building and Common Property (Maintenance and Management) Act 2007 and the Strata Management Act 2013 — whether the developer and the commercial parcel owners were legally entitled to institute a separate regime for the management and maintenance of the commercial parcels and their common property, thereby confining the joint management body to the residential parcels and their appurtenant common property. The court also had to determine the consequences that would follow for resolutions passed under such an arrangement, questions that go to the heart of how strata governance is allocated where residential and commercial components sit within a single scheme.

The dispute also generated interlocutory and contempt-related skirmishes. In one High Court matter, following a post-trial judgment, the developer parties obtained ex parte leave to commence committal proceedings against the joint management body, which then applied to set that leave order aside. In a further appellate matter the court considered whether special circumstances warranted a stay of the High Court judgment pending appeal, where the developer parties held a substantial majority of the aggregate share units in the development, and whether they had acted contrary to the Strata Management Act 2013. Across the decisions, the Hunza Properties parties illustrate how disputes over the control of mixed strata developments are fought simultaneously on questions of statutory structure, contempt and appellate stays.