What the statutory sale and purchase agreement says about a water leak inside the defect liability period — and the notice, evidence and sequence that make it stick.
Read the start date in that sentence carefully, because it is the detail most owners get wrong. The period runs from the date the purchaser takes vacant possession — not from the date on any other document in the file. People assume it runs from something else and quietly lose months, so find the date you actually took vacant possession, write it down, and count from there.
Then write the end date on your calendar with a reminder a few months before it. A defect liability period is one of the few consumer protections that expires on a fixed day and does not care whether you were busy. Our general guide, the defect liability period for a new house, covers the full range of defects; this page is narrower and deals only with water — leaks, seepage and damp — which behaves differently from a cracked tile because it hides, it spreads, and it is often blamed on the occupant.
Three phrases in that sentence do the work, and each one has a practical consequence for how you report a leak.
That is a sequence, not a single option, and each step is a document. Notifying the developer of the cost of the works means you need a cost first — an itemised written quote from a contractor, describing the same defect your notice described. Giving a further period means dating that second notice too. Carrying out the repairs and recovering the cost means keeping the invoice, the photographs and the completion evidence.
None of that happens usefully in a phone call. The reason people lose this argument is almost never the merits — it is that six months later nobody can show what was sent, when, and what was in it.
Find your own agreement and check which schedule it was drawn under before you quote a clause number at anybody. The figures are the same either way; the clause reference is not, and quoting the wrong one is the fastest way to be told you have misunderstood your own contract.
| Your property | The clause named above | What to do now |
|---|---|---|
| Landed property with individual title | Clause 27 of Schedule G | Find your sale and purchase agreement and read the clause in your own copy, not a summary of it |
| A parcel in a subdivided building (strata) | Clause 30 of Schedule H | Same — and note the wording quoted above about what the period covers in a strata scheme |
| You cannot find your agreement | — | Ask the solicitor who acted on the purchase for a copy; they hold the file |
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💬 Get Your Instant QuoteNew-build water defects are not random. The same handful of details account for most of them, because they are the details that get built last, tested least and covered up first. Knowing which one you are looking at changes what you ask the developer to inspect.
| Where it shows | What it commonly is in a new build | What to ask to have inspected |
|---|---|---|
| Bathroom floor stays wet, or water tracks to the door | Falls not set to the floor trap, or a screed laid flat | A ponding test on the bathroom floor, with the result recorded |
| Damp patch on the ceiling below a bathroom | Waterproofing not carried up the wall far enough, or a penetration left unsealed | The membrane at the upstands and around every pipe penetration through the slab |
| Wet skirting or a dark band at the base of an internal wall | Water crossing under the door threshold from a wet area | The threshold detail and the membrane termination at the door |
| Stain on an external wall after storms only | Hairline cracking, an unsealed joint, or render that was not backed by a coating | The external face, joints and any construction joint above the stain |
| Water on the floor beside a window or sliding door | Sill sealant, a blocked or absent weep hole, or a threshold set too low | The frame perimeter seal and the weep holes — see sliding door track overflow |
| Balcony water entering the room | Falls running the wrong way, or the balcony threshold set level with the internal floor | Levels at the balcony door and the membrane under the tiles |
| Top-floor ceiling staining in heavy rain | Roof flashing, a poorly finished upstand or a parapet detail | The roof above your unit, in the presence of the developer’s contractor |
| Continuous drip that does not care whether anyone is using water | A supply pipe rather than a waterproofing defect | A meter test and a pressure test on the affected line |
The last row matters most, because it is a different repair and a different argument. Aircon leak versus pipe leak on a ceiling and condensation versus water seepage separate the three things most often mistaken for a waterproofing failure, and efflorescence in a new condominium covers the white bloom that alarms owners and is a symptom rather than the defect itself.
The notice is the only part of this process that is entirely within your control, so write it as though a stranger will have to read it in a year. It does not need legal language. It needs to be specific, dated, delivered in a way you can prove, and kept.
Then repeat the exercise every time something new appears. A defect that becomes apparent in month twenty is still a defect that became apparent inside the period, and the record of when you first raised it is what shows that.
Two years is long enough for a phone to be replaced, a WhatsApp history to be lost and a site contact to leave the company. Build the file as though all three will happen, because on a long defect list at least one of them usually does.
| What to keep | Where to keep it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Your sale and purchase agreement and the vacant possession notice | A cloud folder, not only a drawer | They carry the schedule and the date the period runs from |
| Every defect notice, with proof of delivery | The same folder, named by date | Shows what was reported and when it was received |
| Dated photographs of each defect, before and after any work | Exported from the phone, not left in the gallery | Shows the condition on a known date |
| Any written finding of the cause from a contractor | PDF, kept with the photographs it refers to | Answers the “you caused it” response |
| Itemised quotes and invoices | Same folder | Turns a complaint into a number |
| Correspondence with the developer and the management office | Exported chat and email, not screenshots alone | Reconstructs the sequence when memories differ |
Stalling is rarely a refusal. It is usually silence, a repair that does not hold, or a contractor who attends, paints over the stain and leaves. Handle all three the same way: keep the process moving in writing and keep the evidence current.
That matters in a condominium because a leak in a new scheme frequently is not inside your parcel at all. Water arriving on your ceiling from the unit above, or through a shared wall, or down from a roof or podium, is a different conversation from a defect in your own bathroom — and in a strata scheme it runs through the management as well as the developer.
We do not restate that procedure here, because we have a page that owns it: inter-floor leakage in Malaysian strata. Read it alongside this page rather than instead of it, particularly if your leak arrives from somewhere outside your own parcel. Common property defects and the developer-to-JMB handover cover what happens to building-wide defects as a scheme is handed over.
A one-line report saying “waterproofing failure” is not a finding. It cannot be checked, it cannot be answered and it will not carry weight with anybody.
There is a real tension here, and it is worth naming rather than pretending it away. A leaking bathroom is intolerable to live with, and the temptation is to fix it and argue later. But the wording quoted above describes a route that has an order to it — notice, a period for the developer to make good, notification of the cost, a further period, and only then works carried out and cost recovered. Jumping the order is how people find themselves holding an invoice and an argument at the same time.
If the situation is genuinely urgent — water reaching electrics, a ceiling sagging, a unit that cannot be occupied — do what safety requires, document it heavily as you go, and take advice before you commit to a full remedial scope. If it is not urgent, keep to the order and keep the paperwork tidy. And in either case, get the cause established first: a repair carried out against a guess is a repair that may have to be done twice.
The one thing worth spending money on early is the finding. These are our own prices, and then the market bands for the remedial systems involved (market estimate 2026, indicative Klang Valley):
| ClickBina service | Our price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Leak detection & assessment | RM300 – RM800 per visit | waived if you proceed with the repair |
| PU injection — leaking bathroom ceiling | RM650 flat | one bathroom ceiling, includes the injection points |
| Bathroom re-waterproofing (non-hacking) | RM1,500 – RM3,500 per bathroom | existing tiles stay; coating over the screed |
| Bathroom re-waterproofing (hack & retile) | RM4,500 – RM9,000 per bathroom | tiles off, new membrane, retiled |
| Work | Market range (2026, Klang Valley) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cementitious slurry | RM6 – RM10 per sq ft | rigid; best on sound concrete |
| Flexible two-part membrane | RM8 – RM14 per sq ft | tolerates hairline movement |
| Liquid PU membrane | RM10 – RM18 per sq ft | seamless, the common flat-roof choice |
| PU injection, market rate | RM80 – RM250 per point | priced per injection point, not per room |
The market rows are an estimate for a first conversation (market estimate 2026, indicative Klang Valley), not a quote for your unit. They are here so that when the developer’s contractor tells you what the work involves, you have some idea whether the scope sounds proportionate. Bathroom waterproofing and PU injection for a leaking ceiling describe the two commonest remedial routes.
Some defect disputes do not settle. We have written the tribunal route up separately rather than compressing it here, because the jurisdiction, the monetary limit and the filing window all have to be stated precisely to be worth anything: see taking a new-build water leak claim to the tribunal. Read it before your defect liability period expires rather than after, because the filing window it sets out can turn on the dates in this one.
If the leak is between units in a strata scheme rather than a matter with the developer, different pages apply — the Strata Management Tribunal and inter-floor leakage cover that side. And if you are still at handover, or approaching it, water damage checks at handover is the page to read first.
ClickBina works on new-build defects across Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, usually in the awkward middle: the developer’s contractor has been three times, the stain is still there, and nobody has said what is actually wrong. We find the cause and put it in writing with photographs, and we tell you plainly when the honest answer is that this belongs with the developer under the wording quoted above rather than with you. Detection and assessment is RM300 – RM800 per visit and is waived if you proceed with a repair. See all of our waterproofing and leak repair services, or send the photographs on WhatsApp for a fixed quote.
This guide sets out what the wording we verified actually says, and what to do about it. It is information, not advice on your own matter. A specific dispute turns on your own documents, your own dates and your own facts, and needs a professional adviser who has read them — take that advice before you rely on anything here.
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