Empire City buyers get leave to appeal against developer Cosmopolitan Avenue

• The Federal Court was told by the buyers’ lawyer Ranjan N Chandran that out of the 58 who claimed for LAD, only eight had received their payment thus far.

PUTRAJAYA (Nov 11): The Federal Court here has granted leave for 58 buyers of Empire City Damansara to proceed with their appeal in the same court against the project's developer, Cosmopolitan Avenue Sdn Bhd, for various issues, including late delivery and not having a proper certificate of compliance and completion.

A three-member bench comprising Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Sebli, Datuk Zabariah Mohd Yusof and Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin unanimously granted leave to the buyers on Monday, based on three questions of law that they posed to the bench.
 
The questions are:

1. Can there be issuance of strata title if only a partial certificate of completion and compliance has been issued (partial ccc)
2. Can a development project be regarded as completed if no certificate of completion and compliance (full ccc) is issued?
3. Can a development project continue indefinitely without a deadline on the issuance of a full certificate of completion and compliance, to the detriment of the purchasers who have invested?

The latest decision came after the Court of Appeal (COA) had, in January this year, set aside the High Court's order for the matter to go for a full trial after dismissing a striking out application from Cosmopolitan on the suit brought on by the purchasers. The buyers had appealed against the COA's decision, as they wanted the matter to go back to the High Court for a full trial, claiming there were triable issues to be determined.

The issues raised by the buyers in the High Court and COA was on the payment of liquidated ascertained damages (LAD) for late delivery of vacant possession, and how the Empire City project still has not obtained its full certificate of completion and compliance eight years after the project's completion.

They further complained that strata titles could not be procured with a partial certificate of completion and compliance.

The Federal Court was told by the buyers’ lawyer Ranjan N Chandran that out of the 58 who claimed for LAD, only eight had received their payment thus far.

The Empire City Damansara project, located along Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, comprises 11 blocks of apartments, hotels and office buildings, including HCK Tower and MyEG Tower, which sit atop a retail podium called Hextar World. The retail podium has 1.7 million sq ft of net lettable area.

The purchasers were represented by Ranjan N Chandran and Jayasri Nadarajan.

Cosmopolitan Avenue was represented by Alvin Lai Kok Wing and Cheryl Leong.

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