Residential property which is badly managed will adversely affect the quality of residents’ lives, and may even become safety hazards which cost lives. For instance, last November, a fire in an apartment block in Shanghai left 50 dead due to inadequate fire prevention measures.
Locally, property management is important in order to prevent and mitigate risks such as fire outbreaks, electrical outages, and flooding from storms due to poor drainage and faulty water pumps.
In Singapore, businesses offering property management services are not licensed, nor are their owners or staff required to undergo any training in the basics of property management and maintenance. There is also no national accreditation body. Instead, the government’s policy is that the industry self-regulates.
These are gaps which should be plugged.
We basically adopted Australia’s strata management laws which incorporated the concept of managing agents. However, we did not port over the Australian requirements for regulation of managing agents. In Australian states, managing agents are accredited businesses with training requirements for its key staff.
Instead, in 2006, Spring Singapore launched a Singapore Standard on the Performance of Managing Agents for Strata Residential Developments, called SS519. Spring and the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) are promoting the SS519 for voluntary compliance. This Standard only covers the basic terms which should be in a fair contract between the Managing Agent and the MCST or Management Corporation. However, I understand that today, even this voluntary standard is in danger of being reviewed and a Working Group has been formed which may further relax the standard in favour of the Managing Agents.
Due to our density of population, the consequence of an incident such as a fire in a building could exact a heavy toll on life and property.
Does the Ministry not see the need to at least work towards tightening up the industry via training and later licensing requirements?