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SPEEDHOME, an end to end property rental platform in Malaysia, applauds the government’s willingness to pass the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) by next year. The RTA will ease the current tension between landlords and tenants in Malaysia.
According to Wong Whei Meng, CEO of SPEEDHOME, they have been striving to build a fair property rental market and certainly with the introduction of this new law, this will make Malaysia a more harmonised country.
In the past 4 years, the platform matched more than 3500 landlords and tenants, and more than 70 percent of the landlords willing to rent the property to tenants of different races.
“Rental racism is quite a common thing that happens in Malaysia, at SPEEDHOME we don’t reject tenants just by their race, but will consider whether if they are a good payment master,” Wong said.
An internal survey conducted on SPEEDHOME’s social media group, found that more than 80 percent of the respondents pointed out the landlord actually doesn’t mind renting out their property to different race tenants, the most important thing is the tenant can pay the rent on time and take care of their property.
On the other hand, the landlord’s hand is tied by the existing law, even if the tenant overstays and doesn’t pay the rent, the landlord still needs to get a court order to evict the tenant, or else the landlords can’t enter the property without the consent of the tenant.
“The existing law takes too much time when it comes to evicting the default tenant, and this whole process causes the landlord loss of time and money, Wong said. What I am hoping is to build a color-blind and fair rental market. There should be a system to protect the good landlord or tenant. We need a residential tenancy Tribunal to settle the dispute between and the landlord.”
Wong also pointed out that there is some feedback from the landlord, who has had a bad experience from having a bad tenant which he suggested the government can work with the current market operator to come out a system to check the tenant or the landlord’s reputation when coming to residential renting, just like some European countries such as Holland and Ireland.
