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Buildings have a lifecycle from not unalike the HUMAN BODY and needs continuous maintenance to prolong its lifespan; and age gracefully.
The quality of a building is underpinned by various factors from design, detailing and specifications, selection of materials, construction practices to QA-QC inspections during construction. Defects cannot be totally eliminated but can be avoided or minimised. Most importantly, defects must be identified, correctly diagnosed and rectified before they de teriorate and causing extended damages. We should also learn from past mistakes from re-visiting our aging buildings.
In Stratified properties, defects at common property areas are usually not reported and/or go unnoticed, in which if left unresolved they would lead to higher costs of Maintenance, Repairs and Replacement.
In our extreme tropical climate defects like concrete cancer and structural decays (from recurrent leaks etc) are prevalent and expensive to repair. These leaks have serious safety and quality-of-life implications including capital depreciation for the property owner. Based on Architect Centre’s property inspections, one in every five newly completed stratified properties has some major faults in plumbing, roofing or dampness at the common property areas. Many of which have gone un-noticed and unreported due to a combination of factors like lack of proper maintenance and management, insufficient maintenance funds and so forth. It is a vicious cycle that leads to indifference for most people living in stratified properties.
Deterioration of defects would eventually lead to building and slope failures, snow-balling into huge remediation costs posing a real financial burden to the owners in terms of repairs and maintenance. For mature properties (many are dilapidated), important life saving and safety features with passive fire- fighting features (e.g. fire doors), and active systems like hose reels, extinguishers and detectors are usually not regularly maintained or inoperable.
Unit owners are forced to ‘live with these problems’ or carry out repairs using diminishing Sinking Funds. Unfortunately there are some MCs who do not have sufficient funds due to poor collection. On the other hand, many residents are dissatisfied with the poor building upkeep and refused to pay maintenance charges. Unresolved defects have also prevented the smooth formation of the respective JMB and the subsequent incorporation of a new Management Corporation. Without proper management and maintenance of the stratified property, the market value of the property as a whole will suffer while the health and safety of its residents will be compromised as a result of poor building upkeep. These are all the key ingredients that when mixed together contributes in the making a ‘property management time bomb’ ticking away about to explode.
Understanding the Life-Cycle (Aging) Process of our buildings will lay the foundation for a Sinking Fund Plan to be established as soon as the JMB/MC is formed. The questions are where and how to start? By having a better understanding on the TRUE COSTS and IMPACT of Unresolved Building Defects to the collective stakeholders within our Property and Construction Industry, Architect Centre hopes to spearhead a collective initiative to resolve the imminent property management time bomb in Malaysia. |
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