We have a buyer for our beloved home in Shah Alam
Robert Tyabji, Shah Alam, 4 February 2024
We had been trying to sell the house for the past 5 years or so, through various estate agents, with no success. Until now.
This afternoon our current estate agent, Joseph Chan of Kith and Kin S/b, brought a gentleman, his wife and grown son over to view the house.
The very next day, Joseph called to tell us that the guy he'd brought over wanted to buy the house and had already paid the earnest money. We agreed to reduce our asking price by ten percent and the buyer agreed to pay us MYR 2.232 million. (We had bought the house for MYR 780,000 in January of 2005 and had paid under a million for repairs and renovation). We'd lived happily in it for 20 years with no major expenses besides adding the 15-foor waterfall and fish pond, and the applicable taxes which are minimal.
This news put us into a major spin. Where would we go? Was selling the right decision after all? Should we cancel the sale? Our doubts were reinforced by Farhad who called from Seattle imploring us not to sell! Fortunately, good sense prevailed and we cast aside our doubts and fears and resolved to see the sale through and find a suitable alternative to rent. Fortunately, the timing seemed right as we had just successfully extended our MM2H visas.
The search for suitable accommodation began in earnest a couple of weeks later. We decided we would rent, not buy, as we want to avoid future complications with cross-border inheritance issues. We decided we would be happiest in an apartment if we could find one suitably large, airy, in green surroundings, and where there were no objections to our dog Nala.
Update, 7 March 2024
Hootoksi had been diligently spending hours every day looking at hundreds of ads for homes and apartments around Kuala Lumpur city and its major suburbs in Selangor. We even visited beautiful Taiping, 3 hours from KL, and plan soon to look in Ipoh, half way to Penang.
But on 5 March we saw just the unit for us, in an elderly condo with just 8 apartments, only 4 occupied. The aparttment, on the second floor (with elevator access), has 3 ensuite bedrooms, a smallish kitchen and dining room, accommodation for our maid, a large sitting area with a very generous covered balcony as well as a large bar complete with wash basin, a small vestibule, plenty of wardrobe and storage space, and with no objection to Nala. The building is located in the lower part of a hilly, wooded area known as Ukey Heights, and about 300 meters off a major road near KL's diplomatic area. All the houses on Jalan Pakat as the road is called are landed bungalows.
Our target date to move in is the first of May, just before the sale of our house is projected to complete. It will be a momentuous move for us, from the relatively secluded, very private bungalow life we have been accustomed to since 1980 in six countries, to an apartment in a bustling city.
Final Update, 25 March 2024
Wow, the whole deal is off! The buyer claimed to have found that the land on which our house stands is actually a bit smaller (by about 1200 sq ft) than the official government land plan. The agent asked us to allow another survey to be carried out, which we agreed to. That survey seemed to corroborate the buyer's claim, so he asked us to reduce the agreed price, which we declined to do as the sale had been agreed on an 'as is where is' basis, with no reference to land size. So the whole deal was annulled!
Fortunately, we suffered no loss as the month's rent we had advanced for the apartment was graciously returned in full. Also, Mah Kim Mun our lawyer who had been advising us all along, waived his charges saying all the wanted was a coffee with us at home!
The emotion we both felt was one of immense relief and thankfulness that our beloved house is still ours, and will remain so until we finally decide otherwise!
