Saturday, October 29, 2011

review on vendors & facilities performance

overall, the performance of our vendors r mostly in the range of "boleh tahan", whereas for the facilities side r in between "boleh tahan" & "good".

lifts, swimming pool, car barriers, common lighting r doing reasonably ok, of course once awhile give a bit of problem is really can't be avoided, as long as when it happen, vendors can attend to it at soonest possible & get the problem fixed, i think that it's not a big issue.

so far, those vendor who had came to attend emergency cases r quite good in the response time, especially lift technician & electrician, so no complaint in this area, for swimming pool & car barrier vendors, it do take longer time for them to come, but it's also acceptable for us as the urgency is not as bad as lift & electrical item.

well, regular vendors, who serve our residents everyday, are "boleh tahan", rooms for improvement, but then also depend on how much we can (or willing) to invest?

they are management staffs, security guards & cleaners, we do received feedback from residents quite often concerning their performance, so far hv both positive & negative comments, but then with the kind of salary we are giving, i guess our expectation must be realistic too.

at the moment we r paying management service RM3000 per month, security guards RM3300 & cleaners RM1700 per month, all at the lower side of market price, as we check around, for our size (275 unit) it should be RM4000, RM4500 (3 guards) & RM2000, but the problem is we can't afford that unless we can increase our collection rate for another 10%, which means every month got another 27 unit willing to pay promptly, then with the additional RM2700 we should be able to hire either more worker or better workers....

i remember few months ago we hv an excellent building supervisor, Malay guy name Wan, fantastic worker, but after serving us for abt 3 months, found a new job in telco line, with a much higher pay..., then tendered resignation. before he left we actually offer to increase his pay, but our best offer still can't beat his new job's salary, so at last he choose to cabut.

now we also having same worry, especially the night guard Adam, he is very good, in fact the reason he willing to live with this salary coz he is foreigner, but always got some better offer from other company, some of them even came to our guard house to invite him to join their company, the reason he choose stay is coz he feel comfortable with the working environment & friendly residents, but we r sure not how long can we hold him here.

We also feel ok with office staff Chitra & supervisor Tanni, in fact also worrying the same problem, how long can we hold them coz sometime same hot temper residents do utter very harsh words on them especially ppl when their cards are barred due to no service charge payment....

residents get what do they pay for, current collection rate enable us to hire these vendors with such quality, so if residents want to enjoy better service, then got to find way to change those defaulters' paying habit, just some good news to share we end this posting, recently we found out at least 5 units occupied by defaulters have just been sold, we hope this trend will continue, ie defaulter selling their units, then new owners hopefully are the good paymaster, for this will definitely increase the collection rate.

thanks.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Robbery on 20/10/2011

one of the darkest moment in year 2011.

on 20/10/2011 morning, 9.45am, a lady from blk j, was robbed by 2 Malay young fella, both wear helmet (white/silver) fully cover the face.

she was just back from doing some regular stuff in the morning, & using the staircase to go her floor, the moment she open the grill door, 2 robbed suddenly appeared from the other side (may hv hid in rubbish room or lift lobby for awhile), using knife to force her to open the wooden door & took away some jewelry.

after the event , she called her husband, made police report, & we hv the CCTV checked on the same afternoon & evening, & found out the 2 robbers didn't go down to the ground floor, which mean after they robbed her, they actually went up & hid somewhere.

we also checked the CCTV footage before the event from 8am, also didn't see these 2 robbers enter blk j in the same morning, which means they may hv entered blk j much earlier than the event, possible 1 or 2 days before, now we r zooming into the possible of insiders job, or their friends who visited them regularly, coz the robbers seem knew the victim's schedule quite well.

this coming few days, we will check from CCTV any suspicious figure who passed the guard house & enter blk j for pass few days before the event, & will get the victim to check, hopefully she can recognize them, also have provided the list of Malay bachelors' unit in blk j for police to do further investigation.

we also passed the words around, asking residents, especially young Malay residents' help, to provide us information if they hv found some suspicious young Malay around, like without job, white/silver helmet, like to hung around at other floor, if u r reading this & u know some of these ppl, pls do let us know.

of course we would not leave out the possible of outside robbers, who may not necessary have any contact with blk j residents, but jz came in to try their luck, for which the CCTV should recorded the movement the moment the entered blk j, we shall see them when full scale CCTV checking carried out next week.

at the guard house side, immediate measure is, ALL visitor, even the regular one, MUST register with the guard for visitation, & visitors bikes are strictly no entry, this may cause inconvenient to some ppl or even offend them, but it's indeed necessary, we also request the guard to submit daily visitor's report for us to review the visitor's pattern & activities.

thanks.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

some general updates...

for residents info...

1) mosquito medicine (abate) - we were told by Mr Tan our committee member that the government clinic are giving the free mosquito medicine, so we have sent the building supervisor to try in the klinik kesihatan Relau on Friday, to our pleasant surprise, it's true, it's free! But anywhere they only gave a few packet each time, & ask supervisor to drop by again to take again, we will use these medicine to put into the semi-circle structure beside the staircase of every floor to kill those mosquito, we also like to encourage our residents to go to the clinic to collect some & put it in the area where the mosquito is possible breed, especially the semi-circle structure as mentioned.

2) sinking fund - we will have a meeting with developer this coming Wednesday to discuss on this matter, we believe some other things like debtors list, facilities bills will be touched too...., pray & hope that this will be a fruitful & peaceful discussion, may God help us so that the sinking fund will be transferred to us soon, in full amount with the interest.

3) dogs matter - as the result of residents' complaint, few MPPP workers did come in to Vista Condo to catch the 2 stray dogs, & again, they managed to escape as they are running for their life! Pls don't blame MPPP workers for not getting these dogs, u really need to see how strong the animal can be in this life threatening situation..., so now the only thing we can try is to kill the dog...., but actually nobody want to do it, coz it's offensive in the sight of Malaysia law. But anyhow we have spoken to the lady who feed the dog, hope that once the dogs find no food in this place, they will cari makan in the other place.

4) water tanks - so far 4 water tanks have been repaired, the vendors & committee are monitoring the condition of the tank, we are arranging with them to repair another 2 more tanks, where the leaking is considered not so serious, but it's better to treat it before too late.

5) finance matter - at the moment we are able to carry forward each month abt 12K to 15K, it's consider quite ok especially in view of some big project had been carried out in 2010 & 2011, like new office & CCTV, but anywhere to keep some saving in the bank is necessary for emergency case.

6) neighboring news - For those who are more sensitive to what's happening to the nearby apartments should know that recently TNB cut the power supply to a project (more than 10 storey) near to Bayan Lepas round-about coz they didn't pay TNB bills for few months, as the result the few lifts shut down due to no electrical supply, their residents forced to climb the staircase to go home for 1 week, at the end their area's YB step in, urge residents to pay service charge & managed to collect some money to pay partially to TNB, then the supply is restored.

thanks.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

further development on sinking fund, etc

we got a call from developer's office last week, abt the sinking fund, asking us to consider to offset the sinking fund with (part of the) debt owed by the defaulters to them, for this proposal the committee have some discussion in our last meeting.

according to the developer's office, those old debt owed by defaulter is amounting to abt RM590k, it refer to the time before JMB & MC take over, ie from 1994 to 2008, some of the residents had not been paying them the SC in full, we also notice few of them owe more than 20K each.

our record shows that the sinking fund is abt RM370K, so if go by offset, how the calculation should go?

but anywhere, the committee have decided NOT to say yes at the moment, but insist they got to return us the sinking fund at soonest possible, few reasons for that decision,

1) JMB or MC is not the right party to collect the old debt, if we do so may end up facing some legal complication.

2) these defaulter are hard core type, it definitely will take a very very very lengthy legal procedure to collect back the debt, but we couldn't wait that long as building need to be painted & lift, water tank need to be upgraded urgently.

3) after all, it still the old management/developer's responsibility to collect the old debt, no point we carry this unnecessary burden.

but anywhere we do not shut the door for further discussion with developer, we still look forward to see their person in-charge to solve the issue so that we can transfer the money back to residents in full amount with interest, as early as possible.

at the same time we do keep the relevant authority (such as COB, YB, state gov't especially) updated with progress of this matter, we do seek their advice whenever there's some new development, our hope is that at the end we do not need to take legal action coz it's too time consuming, we really praying hard now for that.

(also want to take this opportunity to thank COB, YB Yeoh Soon Hin & the council members in MPPP, coz they really help us a lot in forming JMB, MC & now the sinkng fund)

hope to see the sinking fund money soon...

thanks.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

the 3 big on-going projects

these 3 projects really time consuming, draining a lot of energy, started long ago, but still can't see the finish line, outcome is not up to the MC or residents to decide, but once it's done successfully, it will bring huge benefits for ALL the vista residents.

some developments of these to update our residents....

1) Sinking fund, basically residents & MC have done our part, for enough number of residents collected strata title & form MC, & as MC have sent few letter of requisition to developer for the sinking fund, & even communicated with COB, for this COB also sent a letter to them early last week to urge them to return the money, and, if still no response from them, higher level of authority we will run to, can be state gov't (now we r arranging the appointment with chief minister for this), or Kementerian Perumahan of federal gov't, pls do pray that we will get the money soon.

2) Hard core defaulter, few months ago we have sent legal notices to abt 50 hard core defaulter, abt 20 of them responded, in both full & partial payment, but another 30 still remain unmoved..., total of their debt is abt 45K, 2 weeks ago have communicated with our lawyer for MPPP/COB action, but few days ago she got the reply from COB that he is no more the person to act on the matter coz we r now officially MC, so the right party to act is the pengarah of land office, so this week our lawyer going to approach this department for action, we can expect if the hard core defaulter still not paying despite of their warning then tough action will be taken by land office.

3) Entrance shade, or the awning over the guard house to the office so that when heavy rain our residents won't get wet when scanning their T&G card. for this facility we have requested from the Paya Terubong state assemblyman YB Yeoh Soon Hin, during the Earth Hour Party held in March 2011, for last 6 months we have been following up with him, and & with his help, finally last week he sent a contractor to take measurement & provide pricing info for the shade, the impression we got from him is before end of year we should be able to see the facility is up, estimated cost is abt 16K (paid by gov't), area involved is abt 1200 sqft.

these projects are the place where dream & reality clashes, we hv been hoping & praying, doing what we can to make them happen, but as we said earlier, many things are beyond our boundary, we are now praying hard that God will bring these things come to pass soon (for we know that eventually we will get those things, but jz don't know when), hopefully we will hv enough steam to continue the struggle & see the projects completed.


thanks.