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A family in Rawang is hoping the Court of Appeal will intervene to save their 106-year-old bungalow
This comes after the Shah Alam High Court set 18 August as the date for the house's demolition, reported FMT.
The Shah Alam High Court had rejected an application to stay the demolition order, prompting the family to bring the matter to the Court of Appeal.
The family's representative, Maljindar Singh Sidhu Brar, also known as Jimmy, said he has filed a certificate of urgency.
"The reason I'm so adamant is that this house is my family home. We've been residing here for the past 65 years," he told FMT.
The house is currently occupied by Jimmy, his mother, wife, and their two children.
The Court of Appeal has set 18 August to hear the appeal, the same day the house is scheduled to be demolished
Jimmy said his family had applied seven times since 1962 to acquire the land.
"Each time, they tell us that the area has already been taken up under a mining lease and to reapply when the lease expires," he said.
In his latest correspondence with the Selangor Land and Mines Office, Jimmy was informed that the lease would expire at the end of 2025.
However, in early 2025, his family discovered that the lease had been renewed for another 20 years, until the end of 2045.
"When we asked them what would happen to our attempts at alienation, they went silent. It's not that we haven't been going through the proper channels to get our property alienated. We've been doing this since 1962," he said.
According to FMT, the bungalow was built in 1920 by Berjuntai Tin Dredging Bhd, which held the mining lease for the area at the time
In 1959, the company sold the property to its employee, Pologa Nathan, who later sold it to Jimmy's grandmother, Gurtha Kaur.
According to previous news reports, the family first applied to the Kuala Kubu Bharu Land Office (now the Gombak Land Office) in 1967 to acquire the land, but received no response.
Jimmy said Gurtha transferred her interest in the property to the family in 1989 through a deed of assignment.
However, he said the mining lease for the land had already been granted to two cement-producing companies at the time.
