The Legalities of Trespass to Tenancyin Malaysia

Abstract

The landlord-tenant relationship in Malaysia is mostly governed by the tenancy agreement, which spells out the rights and obligations of both parties. Despite having the legal agreements, it has been reported that many issues arise, such as trespass committed by landlords to the tenanted property and recovering losses from the tenants who disappeared. As of today, the country has yet to enact specific legislation to deal with issues arising between landlords and tenants. Hence, in the event of any dispute, the tendency for Malaysian landlords is not to go through the legal system to settle them as it is a costly and time-consuming process. Some tenants who are aware of this legal inefficiency choose to exploit it for their benefit at the landlord’s expense. Hence, the main issues in this paper will be the possible ways in of trespass could be committed by landlords into the tenanted property, and their rights are not very well-protected, and quite often, the safety deposits collected beforehand are never enough to cover the losses. Given several lacunae, this paper analyses the on the possible or several ways in which the landlord could commit trespass into the tenanted property. Also, this paper will investigate the current Malaysian legal system to identify the current solutions available for eviction and repossession of a tenanted property. Also, this paper seeks to similar practices in Australia and the United Kingdom, which havelong-standing legislation governing tenancy issues. The research adopts doctrinal research in which secondary sources,including academicjournals, online sources,and decided cases are referred. The authors contend that contrary to the United Kingdom and the Australian legal position, there is a gap in the Malaysian law in governing landlord-tenant relationship.