Oon Hooi Lin and Melody Ngai explore some possible features of
Malaysia's proposed new tenancy law.
BACKGROUND
Earlier this year, it was reported that the Ministry of Housing
and Local Government of Malaysia was in the midst of drafting a
proposed Residential Tenancy Act ("Proposed Act").
According to the Senior Principal Assistant Director of the
National Housing Department, the Proposed Act is expected to be
presented to the Malaysian Parliament in 2020.
As it currently stands, Malaysia, unlike several of its
commonwealth counterparts, such as the United Kingdom
("UK"), Australia, New Zealand and Canada, does not have
a distinct piece of legislation that regulates tenancies and the
relationship between landlords and tenants. Instead, tenancies in
Malaysia are mainly governed by the law of contracts and common
law, and in legislation such as the National Land Code 1965
("NLC"), Civil Law Act 1956 ("CLA"), Distress
Act 1951 ("DA") and Specific Relief Act
