Court orders govt to accord freehold status to 24 Kepong houseowners

FREE MALAYSIA TODAY. 11TH MARCH: The High Court here has ordered the Kuala Lumpur lands and mines department director-general to convert 24 houses in Taman Bukit Maluri in Kepong to freehold properties.

Judicial commissioner Evrol Mariette Peters said the applicants could not be denied the “right to property” under the Federal Constitution.

The judge, in delivering her verdict online, also allowed a declaration that the 99-year leasehold condition imposed by the department on the land was invalid and ultra vires the Constitution.

She also allowed an order sought that the department issue new freehold land titles to the applicants.

Peters also ordered the department to pay RM14,500 in costs to the houseowners, represented by Pretam Singh, Farizah Mahmud and Amritpreet Kaur Randhawa.

Federal counsel Norazlin Mohd Yusoff appeared for the department.

In their originating summons filed last August, the applicants, who were either owners of double or single-storey homes, said the 1903 master title belonged to a rubber plantation owned by Edinburgh Rubber Estates, with freehold status.

Subsequently, in 1973, the plantation owner transferred the land to Sharikat Permodalan Kebangsan Bhd for a housing project developed by Syarikat Maluri Sdn Bhd.

However, the status of the land was changed to leasehold.

Pretam said the residents had attempted to resolve the problem administratively, including writing to the Prime Minister’s Department but had been unsuccessful.

“Finally, they had no choice but to seek legal redress,” he told FMT.

The lawyer said the owners’ constitutional right to property had been restored as the price of the houses would go up if the status is freehold.