Abstract:
Of all complaints made to Office of the Consumer Protection Board, 85% are about housing. The problems include incomplete construction, no ownership transfer, no facilities provided as specified, untidy finishing, and use of public areas for personal purpose. The objectives of this study were to prioritize the problems; to study the problems in detail and to study the backgrounds of those who have made complaints and their attitudes to measures, which the government has developed to solve the problems. A set of questionnaires was sent randomly to 365 people who made complaints in 1999 The study identified that most of complaints could be prioritized as follows ;incomplete construction, untidy finishing, failure to provide facilities, no ownership transfer and use of public areas as a personal property. The type of residence that causes most problems is condominiums whose ownership titles were transferred between in 1993-1996. Most of those who made complaints including those who have purposes in buying their first house wanted the entrepreneur to refund their money. As regards the measures developed by the government to solve these problems, It found that most people agreed to the standard contract, with the payment of deposit after the completion of construction and the Escrow account respectively. Data arising from the study on background of those who made complaints to The Consumer Protection Board were useful and The Official of the Consumer Protection Board has filed those data which it considers important for future analysis and use devising solutions to consumer protection the problems.