Clearing the Air: Debunking Legal Misconceptions of Private Lease Schemes

The scarcity of land has led landowners to prioritise maintaining their ownership, which can impede the construction of high-rise buildings for housing. However, this situation has presented an opportunity to implement the strata lease scheme. Under this scheme, each strata title is registered with a lease, and buyers are granted the right to possess the purchased strata parcel for a 99-year lease term rather than being registered as proprietors. Despite concerns from the public about the lack of property proprietorship and insufficient protection for buyers under current legislation, this paper aims to review whether Malaysian legislation can answer public concerns in strata lease scheme projects. Qualitative research approaches, including case studies, will be used to examine legal issues from a societal perspective and evaluate the effectiveness of legal institutions in meeting societal demands. The objectives are to identify the legal problems related to the development of strata lease schemes, sometimes called the private lease scheme, and to address these issues. This study challenges negative public perceptions of some strata lease scheme projects. The findings reveal that Malaysian statutes can address the legal issues, and learning from more experienced strata lease scheme projects may help ease the worries over the public's interpretation of private lease schemes.