Aggrieved Purchasers

An housing project can be deemed to be abandoned when: (a) Construction activities on site of the housing construction project have stopped for six months or more consecutively, after the expiry of the Sale and Purchase Agreement (S & P) executed by the developer and the purchaser or; the developer has been put under the control of the Official Receiver; and, (b) Housing Controller is of the opinion that such developer cannot duly proceed with the execution of its obligations as a developer. The roles and obligations of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (MOH) are to gather relevant information, search and initiate ways to rehabilitate the housing projects so abandoned and to identify suitable parties for the rehabilitation of the said projects either they are rehabilitated by the original developers themselves (the first defaulting developer) or by the financiers to the said projects or by the land owners of the projects or even through the initiatives of the purchasers. Actions Committees or through the government rehabilitating agency — Syarikat Perumahan Negara Bhd (SPNB).The abandoned housing projects occurring in Peninsular Malaysia can be categorized as follows:(a) Projects with the potential for rehabilitation; (b) Projects taken over by other new developers;(c) Projects not suitable for rehabilitation; and, (d) Completed rehabilitated projects.

Islamic Banking has been established since in the 1980s in Malaysia. Various Islamic Home Finance products have been introduced and practised in Malaysia. However, these products have been tainted with the issue of their inadequacy to deal with the issues of problematic housing projects such as late delivery of vacant possession, shoddy workmanship and failure of the developer to comply with the sale and purchase agreements. This paper aims to study the case law dealing with issues, other than issues of abandoned housing projects, in Islamic Home Finance involving Islamic Home Finance Bay' Bithaman Al-Ajil (BBA). This paper used shariah (Islamic Law), legal doctrinal, qualitative social and textual analysis research methodologies. This paper finds that the case law reveals weaknesses of the BBA. The outcome of this paper will improve the theory and practice of Islamic Home Finance BBA in Malaysia.

Even though there are laws and policies promulgated by the Malaysian government to govern the housing industry, abandoned housing project is still one of the housing malaises in Peninsular Malaysia. If it is not feasible to rehabilitate the abandoned housing projects, they will be stalled forever to the detriment of the purchasers. Virtually, there is no universal way to resolve this problem due to the fact that issues faced by the stakeholders are different in almost every abandoned housing project. Thus, different methods are absolutely necessary to tackle the problems especially to rehabilitate those projects. To this point, laws and practices in New South Wales, Australia may deserve consideration.