Woman finally gets land in Mukah she purchased in 2002

SIBU (Dec 1): A woman who purchased a piece of land in Mukah was finally able to acquire the land after 21 years of fighting for it.

According to lawyer Ben Lau, his client surnamed Tiong and her relative bought the land from the late Wan Madzihi in 2002.

However, businessmen Ngiam and Heng claimed that they purchased the land from Madzihi in 1990 at a sum of RM48,000.

A land search conducted by the lawyer showed the land was charged to the bank, and there were no other encumbrances tied to the land.

The sales and purchase agreement entered between Wan Madzihi and the purchasers and memorandums of transfer (MOTs) were signed in escrow.

“However, the transfer could not be done because Heng lodged two caveats. So, the MOTs were not accepted by the Land and Survey Department, Mukah,” he said.

Then, in 2003, Ngiam and Heng proceeded with the first suit against the late Wan Madzihi. They lost the case in 2008.

The court ordered that Ngiam and Heng no longer had interest in the land and the interest should go to the third party, which was Tiong.

That is because Tiong had already signed an agreement with the late Wan Madzihi. Ngiam and Heng only had the right over the monetary claim from the late Wan Madzihi.

Then, in 2011, Ngiam and Heng filed the second lawsuit to claim their right over the property again and over the agreement to divide the land equally between the parties.

However, the High Court dismissed the second lawsuit because the right to the property had already been decided and as to the agreement, there was no such agreement concluded by the parties.

Dissatisfied with the decision on the second lawsuit, Ngiam and Heng filed an appeal in 2015, which the Court of Appeal dismissed in 2016.

Ngiam and Heng subsequently filed Notice of Motion for leave against the decision of the Court of Appeal and in 2017 the Federal Court dismissed the leave application.

“Again, there was a third suit by Ngiam and Heng that they wanted the rights to the property, but at the end of the day, the parties had come to a consent whereby Ngiam and Heng were to pay damages to Tiong, and Ngiam agreed to move out from the property within 21 days.

Instead of moving out, Ngiam caveated the land which Tiong only found out in 2022, which led Tiong to file an application to court to remove the caveat lodged by Ngiam,” Lau said.

Then, Ngiam’s lawyer came out and said that Ngiam will withdraw the caveat and asked that damages not to be claimed from him.  Ngiam said he would move out by Chinese New Year this year.

“We agreed to this, but he did not do it. So, we had no choice but to get the order from the court to have them move out. On Nov 9, court sheriff served the notice to vacate the house to be complied within 14 days,” he said.

However, Ngiam did not comply with this. Tiong through his lawyer had to carry out the execution and demolish the house on Nov 29.