The Online Citizen A Community of Singaporeans 
In recent days, more and more flat owners are going online to voice their displeasure over the poor workmanship of their Built-to-Order (BTO) flats and having defects in the units despite paying a high sum of money to the Housing Development Board (HDB) for their dream home.
One of such owners, Mr Adrian Chong, a flat owner at Punggol Waterway Terraces I shared his story of how his home-to-be is plagued with defects even before moving in.
Mr Chong purchased his flat in 2010 and had targeted to move into the unit by August or September 2015 but his family plans is very unlikely now with so many problems with the unit itself and the developer along with its sub-contractors.
The photos below show the defects he found after the collection of keys for his unit on May 9th.
The floorings are after-effects of ratification by Building Service Centre.
During Mr Chong’s last trip to his flat last Monday, nothing much was seen to be done. The defective pipe is still left unchanged and the parquet flooring has become worse after their ratification as shown in the images.
It is said that there are new defects appearing and damage to the unit each day as the contractors perform rectifications to the unit.
“There are some defects which pictures won’t be able to tell much, like loosening of the rubber tracks for the sliding doors at the balcony and service yards.” said Mr Chong
According to the marketing procedure of the property, a three room flat would range from $186,000 to $237,000 while a five room flat costs between $374,000 to $458,000
“Considering the amount we paid for the flat, we did not expect to see such bad defects or bad workmanship. Water pressure of the tap, shower head and toilet flushing were also weak. Timber skirting around the house were also painted with white paint making it looked so cheapskate.” lamented Mr Chong on the quality of the furnishings.
The defects were submitted to the building service centre, and Mr Chong was given an appointment to have a joint inspection with the supervisor to highlight and go through the defects.
Building services centres are set up at newly completed public housing projects for home owners to report defects. They have a one-year period after collecting their keys to have defects rectified by the building contractor.
However, Mr Chong faced difficulties in getting the contractors to do a decent job without incurring new defects and damages as they rectify existing defects.
“As working personnel, we do not have the luxury of time to keep going down to the unit to rectify the defects and monitor them. They (The contractors) delayed our renovation plans as we cannot start our renovation without having them to rectify the existing defects first.”
He added that as a flat owner, the minimum expectations are to give his family a unit that is free from defects and good enough to stay in.