Guide 03 · Your Rights
The Defect Liability Period: Your 24-Month Window to Free Repairs
Here is the most under-used consumer right in Malaysian property: if you bought from a housing developer, your sale and purchase agreement (under the standard Schedule G or Schedule H contracts of the Housing Development Act) gives you a Defect Liability Period of 24 months from the date you take vacant possession. During this window, the developer is contractually obliged to repair defects, shrinkage, and faults arising from defective workmanship or materials — at their cost, not yours.
Twenty-four months sounds generous. In practice, most buyers burn it. They move in, live around the problems, complain verbally to the management office, and discover at month 25 that nothing was ever formally claimed.
How to claim properly
- Put it in writing. Submit defects to the developer in written form — the official defect form, a letter, or email — with photos, locations, and dates. Keep copies and acknowledgements of everything.
- Know the repair clock. Under the statutory contract terms, once you give written notice, the developer must carry out repairs within 30 days. If they fail, the contracts provide a mechanism for you to recover the cost of rectification works — including recourse to the stakeholder sum held under your SPA, subject to its procedures.
- Don't accept cosmetic patch jobs. A skim of filler over a seepage stain isn't a repair. Note recurring defects as new written claims each time they reappear.
- Escalate if stonewalled. The Tribunal for Homebuyer Claims hears claims against developers cheaply and without lawyers — and a documented defect trail is exactly the evidence it needs.
Developers dispute vague complaints; they rarely dispute a numbered, photographed defect report signed off by RISM & RICS registered inspectors. In our clients' experience — like Mr Tan's 246-defect report at Potpourri — a certified report is often the difference between "we'll look into it" and a rectification schedule.
The smart timeline
Month 0: full inspection at VP, submit everything found. Months 1–20: report new defects in writing as they surface — seepage and cracks often take a few rainy seasons to appear. Months 21–23: commission a final pre-expiry inspection to sweep the unit one last time while the developer is still on the hook. That final sweep is one of the most cost-effective inspections we perform.
- You have 24 months of free repairs from vacant possession — but only for defects claimed in writing.
- After written notice, the developer has 30 days to repair.
- Keep a documented trail: photos, dates, forms, acknowledgements.
- Book a final inspection before month 24 — after expiry, every defect is yours to fund.