XTREME MERIDIAN Sdn Bhd

On the court record

A housing developer litigating purchaser claims for liquidated ascertained damages under the Housing Development Act 1966 Schedule H contract, centred on when the LAD period begins to run and the validity of the completion certificate.

Xtreme Meridian Sdn Bhd is a housing developer, and it appears in the corpus in litigation over the late delivery of vacant possession and claims for liquidated ascertained damages by purchasers under statutory sale and purchase agreements. It appears mostly as appellant and respondent in High Court appeals from the Sessions Court, and in a judicial review before the Court of Appeal.

The central legal question recurs: when does the clock for liquidated ascertained damages start to run? Several matters engaged the Housing Development Act 1966 and the Schedule H statutory contract, the dispute being the commencement date of the LAD for delayed delivery of vacant possession — whether it runs from the initial payment made under a letter of intent or from the date of the sale and purchase agreement. These matters were also litigated as representative or multi-party actions by groups of purchasers.

The disputes extended to the completeness of the development and the validity of official documents. One judicial review before the Court of Appeal, invoking the court's supervisory rather than appellate jurisdiction, concerned the Defect Liability Period and a failure to observe a non-rectification clause, and whether the tribunal had committed any illegality, irrationality or procedural impropriety. In the Sessions Court appeals, purchasers claimed LAD alleging that the Certificate of Completion and Compliance was defective and that an extension of time granted by the Deputy Controller was invalid. The recorded dispositions varied: in one appeal the court affirmed the Sessions Court and dismissed the appeal with costs assessed at RM10,000; in another the appeal was allowed in part, the court correcting the legal basis while leaving undisturbed the declaration that vacant possession was to be delivered within 48 months under the agreement. The litigation as a whole illustrates how a single delayed development can generate a spread of proceedings — first-instance claims, appeals and judicial review — each turning on the same handful of statutory questions about the Schedule H contract, the completion certificate and the validity of any extension of time granted by the controlling authority.