a fantastic vista community

hooray! lastly we hv collected our MC cert! on last Friday, & this has put us in the legal position to hold the sinking fund, in other words, we r now in much better position to request the developer to transfer the money. (in fact we hv sent in total abt 5 letters for the sinking fund, but then still under JMB) we hope developer will show good cooperation to let us hv the money, but if they (think) hv reason not to do so, then we will get help from state authority or federal authority to help, for that we also hv some good contact there..

we share with some residents abt this good news of MC cert, they keep saying "thanks JMC/MC for the hard work...", but we want to say we do hv fantastic residents in Vista Condo to make this happen, with God's help.

consider this, first we need to hv 25% of residents to collect their strata title, or 70 parcel owners, so to hv that number is a big challenge coz each unit need to spend abt 1k to 2k to collect it, but to our pleasant surprise, after 1 year of appealing to residents, we hv 85 residents done so..., then next challenge, to get at least half of them to attend the AGM to form MC, in our case, it's 43 parcel, to be honest we did not hv much confident that we can get that number for AGM, as some of them r landlords who r not staying here, also some r busy with many commitment in their business, job & others, we counted at least 10 of them in outstation for business activity or family function, then really thank God, those who r available really made the effort to come, & we jz "ngam-ngam" get 43 parcel!!!

talk abt our residents, i must they r one of the best in this Relau area, look, now we hv abt 80% of unit paying their SC, & most of them paying punctually! do u guys know that this is actually among the highest collection rate in the surrounding area? with that the management can use it to do the necessary facilities repairing & upgrading works, as the result, now all our facilities r performing reasonably well.

(for those who hv Chinese newspaper Sin Chew, try read saturday's northen region news, one apartment at prai side hv all the lift down for quite awhile already, residents must climb up & down staircase, so some Malay residents decided to balik kampong earlier coz tak tahan lagi, then an old lady got only leg as another leg was amputated, forced to stay home coz can't climb staiircase. another apartment hv collection problem, their JMB will call EGM to make announcement that if residents still don't pay SC, then the whole group will step down as they can't sustain anymore, this will be disaster then! also at Penang side, residents threaten to lodge report to federal gov't coz the neighbor install kitchen duct coz health hazard, as the neighbor refused to dismantle it & COB also can't do much, so residents report it to federal gov't representative there. other news is due to poor occupancy rate, the apartment do not hv enough fund to do repair work.., also earlier on we did heard abt a lot of apartments facing problem of ppl throwing stone/brick/acid from higher floor....)

we thank God that our residents r willing to comply rules in Vista Condo, eventhough some of the rules cause some inconvinience to them, but for common benefit sake, they choose to flow along, really thanks a lot. Of course once awhile we do face some residents did break some rules, never mind lah, jz small number of them only..., after all at the end when they understand the situation they will comply too..

so again, thank a lot for everybody's cooperation, i must say this, it's not the money which will make vista a better place, but it's residents' attitude & cooperation will make it happen!

thanks.

some general updates...

few updates like to share w residents...

security matter - on 20/8/2011 saturday morning abt 2am, 2 outsiders sneaked in with their motorcycle (thru the gap in between the entrance long bar & guard house), but the night guard detected it, he view from cctv & found out they were scouting residents' motorcycles at the blk k ground, he went there immediately to question them, & as they can't give the good reason why they r here, he took down their particular & contact his supervisor, & later on alerted the police, the 2 guys left but their particular have been passed to police, we will send the photo too after we print it out. special thanks to the guard for the good job.

maintenance matters - as usual there's always maintenance requests that the office need to attend to, but 1 particular case worth mentioning here, we have managed to fix the clips for the gutter behind the blk k lift (facing the motor parking area), this gutter in fact posted safety hazard for few week coz total abt 5 clips (from ground flr to 5th flr) has been missing, it has big possible of falling if high pressure applied on it if there's heavy rain (it's function is to drain out the blk k roof top rain water), but we has struggle for not getting vendor to fix coz it's a dangerous job, thank God lastly thru blk j renovator ah poh's help, some Bangladesh workers set up 10 set of staging (to cover ground flr to 5th flr) to get the clip fixed, cost us RM650.

water tank - 1 water tank at blk j is fixed, now vendor is doing the 2nd unit, at the same time the repaired 1 is closely monitored, once detect any leaking again will quickly patch again...., we have arranged with the vendor after he has done all the water repair, he should come & check it on quarterly basis.

car parking - have managed to convince the blk k 20th flr resident to park his car outside, so as now most of the similar cases have been solved, except the Malay cycling guy, he has told us he's going to rent a lot for his 2nd car, as we check with office, seems not done yet...., got to settle it soon coz residents have complained already, actually deal with cases like this is quite time consuming & tiring too.

rental lot - at the moment we do manage to rent out abt 40 lots for residents who hv more than 1 car, in other words it has generated abt RM2000 extra monthly income for the management fund, for us this is not a small money, at the moment we are trying to get the unused empty land behind the rental parking lot, to "borrow" from related authority & convert it to abt 20 parking lot, then another RM1000/mth will be within sight..., but it still got long way to go...

office renovation - it's already completed (except some minor touch up here & there), it took such a long time coz the arrangement was progressive payment, ie they completed something & we paid them that completed job, this is to make sure we won't go back to the position before where we were burdened by too much debt.

house rules - the new set of house rules has been done according to the EGM decision, now getting ppl to proof read, we should be able to distribute to residents by end of August, well, last EGM residents did decide on some new rules, now, we face the new challenge of putting them into practice, new rules such as tyre wheel clamping, no item at corridor, no pets, etc, hope we will hv full cooperation from our residents in this issue, coz house rules is to serve the common benefit of all the residents.

thanks.

MC vs JMB

we r now officially MC, management corporation, and our JMB will be gone in another month's time, in other words, we r at the period of transition.

oh..., what is JMB? what is MC...? what so big deal abt that?

we don't expect many residents to hv interest on this "systems", but if we tell them only thru MC we r possible to get back our sinking fund (300k plus) from the developer, & this money will be used for painting of blk j & blk k, then it's different reaction u can see from them.

(abt sinking fund, if u still don't know what's that, still remember when u purchased ur house, u were asked to contribute RM1000, pls check ur receipt file, u should keep the sinking fund receipt coz next time when sell ur house, u should claim it from the new owner & pass the same receipt to him/her. we hv RM275k in the sinking fund coz total unit is 275, this money were there with the developer since 15 yrs ago, thru yrs' of interest, it has came up to 300K plus, of course those ppl who follow up with bank's FD interest will tell us the figure should be higher than that!)

ok let's come back to JMB & MC...

according to building & common property act, developer need to form JMB (joint management body) after OC for the building is obtained, in JMB board should be 5 to 12 members, with developer also included, so we see the term "joint", it refer to effort by both "resident/committee" & "developer", under this system, most of the power of management actually have been transferred to residents, but matters pertaining to buying & selling of parcel should be agreed by both developer & JMB member, at this stage, developer still the right party to hold the sinking fund, whereas building maintenance fund (general term is management account) is by JMB.

MC, or management corporation, is a body which should be formed by developer to make residents hv full say in everything (or complete independent from developer), once 25% of parcel owner have already collected their strata title. but if developer refuse to call AGM to form MC, the city council will appoint a resident to call AGM to form MC, & this happened to Vista Condo early this year.

once MC is formed, it should replace JMB when condition is right, it's a taxing process coz it involves transfer of account, asset & liability, new receipt & cheq book, etc, we should see the completion by end of August, which means (most likely) in Sept we will announce to resident that JMB has cease his function, then all the payment & cheque should issue to MC, & also the receipt they receive from office should be under MC, but pls wait for announcement...

so, the next thing to do is opening the MC bank account after we receive the certificate (should be this week or next week), then urge developer to transfer our sinking fund, for which we hv already triggered the process by sending them few letters of requisition since long time ago, hopefully we will see the smooth & successful transfer of this big junk of money, may God help us...

thanks.

unseen facitilies, but very important too

i guess if we would conduct a survey to check what's the most important common facilities, the answer from residents should be the LIFT, this is understandable as w/o the lift functioning well, it effect everybody, especially the higher floors.

well, if i check with JMB, they would say the T&G car barrier is also very important, coz this is a good way to remind some residents in their busyness pls remember to pay their service charge, but of course most of our residents no need to be reminded, for many of the ppl in vista are good pay master, we really thank God for them.

but some of the unseen or not-so-obvious facilities in fact are very very very important, these facilities may not be used so regularly as lift or car barrier, but when it's needed then got to be in good condition, or else, some can be big disaster.

fire fighting facilities: the pump, the control panel, the pipe, the nozzle, the stop valve.... , we have started the upgrading process since few months ago, do see some delay due to the contractor's non-committal attitude, so last month we told him off! we hv got the new contractor to do the jobs, report came back to us that pump & panel are ok, jz some leaking to be fixed, lock for riser room hv installed, but need to replenish the missing nozzle & stop cock/valve, we fix the timeline by end of August the project need to be completed.

drain pipe gutter: if u r a observing person, u should be able to see few gutters from ur balcony, the white color big pipe to drain out rain water from the roof of blk j & k to the drains at ground flr, our worry for the gutter is not much on it's functioning, but it's condition. Some of these gutters hv lost few clip which hold them close to the wall, w/o the clip the gutter will be bent (due to pressure of water, heat of the sun) then once the angle is hitting the limit, it has big chance of falling down! i remember last year before the current batch JMB took over, the gutter in between unit 1 & 3 of blk k break in the middle part, & drop to the ground, damaged a visitor's car door & window, glass smashed, & even pock a big hole on the JMB member's car shade!

last year we did engage a plumber to tighten the clip of gutter, but not so successful coz many residents not letting him to enter their premises to fix it (balcony & master room are the only place can access to the gutter), we did give advance notice but somehow these ppl jz not so cooperative, perhaps we need to try again with different approach.

another area, even though is not consider as facility, but worth mentioning here, is the mosquito problem, now as the dengue cases on the rise, we do engage a pest control vendor to help get rid of mosquito with whatever chemical which is suitable, especially at those semi-circle structure at the end of staircase of each floor, also pay cleaners extra money for them to clear the mud & rubbish found inside there, but we also hope residents won't throw things there, now we r also writing to jabatan kesihatan to arrange for the fogging. (hope they will agree coz they only do that when there's dengue case reported)

safer vista is definitely helps to make it better place for stay, thanks.