Bayan Villa, Bukit Ikhlas

Purchaser Calvin Leong has updated us on the discussion, here it goes:-

I would like to update about the optional package:

They have finalize the tender for optional package.
- air-cond will be York (forgot to ask what HP)
- the would install the furniture along with handover
- for home automation item, one of the feature is intercom system will not only connect to the guardhouse, it will connect directly to your mobile.
- (I think) they have done the piping for centralize hot water and we just have to source for a water heater and install it (for those who didn’t sign up for optional package 2). Pls don’t take my word for this.

Thanks to Calvin Leong.

Related topics:-
1. Update by Purchaser Au – Oct 30, 2009

Calvin Leong, Au and I met with the Bukit Ikhlas management yesterday. Here is purchaser Au’s update on our discussion:-

Dear all,

Bayan Villa is now in the process of QA/QC the units before handing over to the purchasers. They are actually doing the defect works for us, in maintaining high quality of works carried out by their contractors. Broken or smeared tiles, will be replaced with new ones and be assured that this will be completed soon enough as Bayan Villa has employed sufficient workforce to carry out the task.

I’ve briefly checked on the few units on Wednesday (28 Oct), and found that the workforce is diligently doing the rectification works, and no worries for all of us that the quality is up to the standard. It’s also good that they do it now instead of us finding out and later on filling up the defect work forms when we want to move in.

There will be some news on Sam’s blog about commitment given by Bayan Villa some time from now, but please do give time allowance to update the info on his blog.

Regards,
Au

Thanks to Au.

Some of you have raised topics on homeloans, interesting package, lock-down/ lock-in period, refinancing, etc.

Purchaser Calvin leong has shared some useful tips on getting the right bank for a suitable package here. Some of you like Ewyong, Sim, wayloon, and perrin share your homeloan experience too. Thanks to you guys.

I find it useful to all other purchasers and potential buyers as a reference. Let me recap what they have shared:-

Calvin Leong said:-

• “As one of the early buyers, my interest is relatively higher compared to what is offered now (-2.2 at least offered by EON). I heard from relative that you could write in to have the bank revise it even before the 5 year lockdown period. I haven’t bothered coz the bank haven’t completely writedown the loan amount. In fact what I am looking for is changing my plan to a flexi mode. It would be great if anyone would be able to share their experience with their bankers.”
• “Usually bank will lockdown your HL for ~5 years. If you break it, you pay the penalty (usually 2-3% of the loan). After 5 years, you can shop for another bank to “refinance” your property and you can probably ask for the market price (not sure if the bank will actually call a realer to rate the market price). The HL these days are now most ZEC.I have plans to restructure my HL to a flexi pay so that I could have the money easily. My rates now are alot higher than what the market is offering but if it means restarting my lockdown period, it is not worth the effort.”
• “I don’t think it is worth while paying the penalty coz 2-3% is a lot of money and I only need to hold on to another 1 year before the lockdown period is over.”
• “I have a few formulas for HL. If you seek the lowest interest rates, look for the smaller banks. EON and Alliance have very good offers. EON advertise -2.3 at one point (whole tenure).I don’t like internationals banks. They are not really competitive.If you opt for fix rate, I doubt you can get good rate.After that look for convenience. Going bank every month can be quite a hassle.
• “Get flexi if possible if you’re planning long. Don’t under estimate how much you can save by holding off your Credit Card bills before the last day.”
• “Don’t forget that you can negotiate with your banker to counter-offer your rate.”

Ewyong said:-

• ” I am on HSBC HomeLoan. I have actually started the installment since last year because based on the agreement that I signed with them, the installment will start no matter what after 3 years. I did not realize that until the bank inform me because the as usual, these clause are written so small and you won’t notice until you face them.”
• “Anyway, about revising, you should try to write to the bank and request for that. My wife and I manage to request for revision but it is still not as good as those that is in the market now because the rate that we sign for was during 2005 time.”

Sim said:-

• “We signed our bank loan agreement somewhere in 2005 with BLR +0.25% but I managed to get interest revision after official write-in early of this year to the bank (CIMB). Now my rate is BLR -1.5% without switching to another bank.Not the best but still good deal for us without paying penalty.”
• “You may also write -in to request full monthly installment as mentioned by Ewyong to reduce the principal. With the full installment, next step is withdrawal money from EPF. Now I still waiting my bank statement for the EPF withdrawal application.”
• “For me, they “restart” the lockdown period, another 5 years.”
• “Refinancing will save a lots in long-term even we pay the penalty. If you plan to settle the loan faster(ie ,5-7 years), the saving will be reduced. So, it soley depends your plan.”
• “You can roughly evaluate the package using Excel. I will opt for the flexi loan package if available during 2005…”

wayloon said:-

• “I’m using semi-flexi from public bank. that banker telling me if wanted to start house installment, i need to straight pay the amount for the installment only. there is no anything or registration require.”

perrin said:-

• “i’ve called up several banks today
  ambank –> blr – 2.00%
  uob –> blr – 2.00% (for the first 5 yrs) and blr – 2.40% (from the 6th yrs onwards)
  ocbc –> a bit lupa, but macam blr – 2.20%
  public bank –> also a bit lupa, but macam blr – 2.15%”
• “the sales agent told me if i were to get international bank, there are more changes that they have to do (which they should, since i’m buying a property from them!) and hinted that i might have to pay the lawyer fees for S&P.”

I went to the site yesterday for some photos. Bukit Ikhlas is aggressively constructing the clubhouse and access roads.

When Au and I went for a dinner at Chan Yew Kee last Friday, we bumped into Mr. David and the salespersons, we had a chat on the progress of Bayan Villa. According to David last week, electricity supply will be in by this week, it will be diverting through Pusat Perdagangan Seri Kembangan and possibly there will be an electricity shortage in that area, he jokingly asked us not to have dinner in that area in this week.

When I drove all the way home to Taman Universiti Indah from Bukit Ikhlas after taking photos, I noticed that some piping work were ongoing along Jalan Putra Permai, it looked as if joining pipes from the UPM side to Bukit Ikhlas side. I called David, and he confirmed that those are to join pipes from the suction tank/ pump to Bukit Ikhlas (probably to the resorvoir). Anyway, let’s see some photos:-

(Click on photos to enlarge)

The access road at Wang Soon site. We can see that the TNB poles have been removed, and a new lamp-pole has been added!

(Click here for more photos…)

Continue from here

I have yet to receive the checklist from Mr. David, he said it takes sometime to get done as there are so many forms that the architect has to prepare. I think Mr. David has misunderstood what I am trying to ask for. I just need a list of all the required “sokongan” from the correspondent authorities, but not the paperworks or documents they need to submit to the authorities.

The Certificate of Fitness (CF) is an official document that is issued by the city’s authority to acknowledge that a building is safe to be occupied. I have searched through the internet and got some information about CF. I also called Mr. David to remind him about the checklist, I asked Mr. David about access road from Wang Soon site, and checked on the status of work progress.

The Certificate of Completion and Compliance (CCC) has been introduced since April 2007, and came into force effective by April 12, 2007. The CCC replaces the Certificate of Fitness Occupation (CFO) previously issued by the local authority (Pihak Berkuasa Tempatan, PBT). The CCC is issued by the project’s Principal Submiting Person (PSP, not PlayStation Portable) who is a professional Architect, Professional Enginner or Registered Building Draughtsman.

Then, why are we waiting for the CF instead of CCC? The reason is that CCC can only be issued for projects that have obtained their Building Plan Approvals after April 12, 2008. This is because under the new CCC system, a responsibility process matrix is introduced. Each construction process needs to be verified by professionals and contractors or trade contractors. Twenty-one stage certification forms need to be endorsed along the entire process. These are included as new schedules (Form Gs) under the revised UKBS 1984 (Amendment) 2007 (Uniform Building By-Laws). The list of all twenty-one stage certification forms shown as below:-

FORM G 1 Stage Certification : Earthworks
FORM G 2 Stage Certification : Setting Out
FORM G 3 Stage Certification : Foundations
FORM G 4 Stage Certification : Structural
FORM G 5 Stage Certification : Internal Water Plumbing
FORM G 6 Stage Certification : Internal Sanitary Plumbing
FORM G 7 Stage Certification : Internal Electrical
FORM G 8 Stage Certification : Fire-Fighting (Passive)
FORM G 9 Stage Certification : Fire-Fighting (Active)
FORM G 10 Stage Certification : Mechanical Ventilation
FORM G 11 Stage Certification : Lift/Escalator Installation
FORM G 12 Stage Certification : Building
FORM G 13 Stage Certification : External Water Supply System
FORM G 14 Stage Certification : Sewerage Reticulation
FORM G 15 Stage Certification : Sewerage Treatment Plant
FORM G 16 Stage Certification : External Electrical Supply System
FORM G 17 Stage Certification : Road and Drain
FORM G 18 Stage Certification : Street Lighting
FORM G 19 Stage Certification : External Main Drain
FORM G 20 Stage Certification : Telecommunication
FORM G 21 Stage Certification : Landscape

According to David, the stage certification of CCC and CF (or CFO) are more or less the same. But CCC endorsements are done by the professionals, but CF is by the local authority, the local authority is MPSJ for our case. Since we have had a meeting with En. Ismail, the Pengarah Perancangan Bandar of MPSJ, and he has said to us that the process of CF application can be completed within 2 weeks provided the developer meets all the requirements and completed the project according to the DO (Development Order), it sounds good for us and the developer too.

I am still waiting the CF application checklist from Mr. David, he said his architect needs sometime to prepare it. He said we can refer to the CCC checklist for the time being. I am fine with it as their main priority is not to please us by showing us what they are going to do, but to chase their time to complete everything the soonest. Therefore, we will refer to the CCC stage certification list until Bukit Ikhlas’s architect has got the proper list for us, even so, we can call up Bukit Ikhlas to check the status of the CF process regularly, I will check with either David or Kenneth on this from time to time, and update you guys here.

According to David, they will start submitting the first form which is the “soft-scape” by the third week of October, but he is pushing the architect to get it done by mid of October. The “soft-scape” is something like grass and trees as what David told me. He said there are about fourteen endorsements in CF, it is not as many as twenty-one in CCC. He said the rest of the endorsements are from Syabas, Indah Water, the Fire Department, also for the “hard-scape” such as the roads and drains, and a few more which he can’t remember.

He also said that TNB has just got all the underground-cabling done in the site. Now, their workers have to clean up the sites before tarmac repavement starts as the digging work for laying cables by TNB had caused the whole site very messy. You can see this in Chafoo’s photos.

In one of the previous entry, I did mention that it looked as if we are getting a twin double-lane access road connecting to Wang Soon site. I was wrong, it has been confirmed by Mr. David that it is a one lane road for each direction instead of something like I what illustrated here.

(Click on photo to enlarge)

I reillustrated the Wang Soon access road after the getting clarification from Mr. David. It is a two-single-lane road instead of a two-double-lane as I mentioned previously.

Reference links:-
1. MPSJ Perakuan Siap & Permatuhan (CCC)
2. Board of Architects Malaysia (Lembaga Arkitek Malaysia, LAM)
3. The Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM)

Chafoo sent me the site photos taken by him recently, they come with description as well. Thank you, Chafoo.

(Total 46 photos, click on photos to enlarge)

(Click here for more photos…)