Mont Kiara Condominium Security Systems: What to Check First.
QUESTION ANSWEREDWe are on the committee of a Mont Kiara condominium. What should we be checking in our CCTV, access control and barrier systems that is particular to a building like ours?
Three questions decide a Mont Kiara building’s security systems before any product choice does: whether the development is one strata body or several, who holds the maintenance contract for each shared part of the system, and whether the access register keeps pace with the building’s own tenancy changes. All three are answered from the building’s own documents, not from a product list.
- 01Eighteen of the twenty-nine buildings on Occhio Tec’s published register are in its Mont Kiara and Dutamas groupWHERE WE WORK
- 02A development can hold a subsidiary management corporation with its own maintenance account and sinking fund account, under section 64(3)(a) of the Strata Management Act 2013TWO BUDGETS
- 03Section 64(4) says the management corporation has no liability for contracts made or debts incurred by a subsidiary management corporation — so who signed decides who answersWHO SIGNS
- 04Safety and security measures are the first matter section 70(2) lists for an additional by-law, and a Mont Kiara short-term-letting rule survived the Federal Court in 2020THE AUTHORITY
- 05Three Mont Kiara buildings have published signed letters naming their own systemsON THE RECORD
ON THIS SHEET05 SECTIONS
What makes a Mont Kiara condominium different from any other tower?
Where a Mont Kiara development is several blocks standing on one shared podium, what changes its security system is not the price per square foot. Those blocks share one vehicle entrance, one guardhouse, one car park and one cabling spine, while the people who pay for each block may not be the same people. Whether your own development is one of those is a matter of record, not of observation.
Committees carry that question themselves. The Minister of Housing and Local Government, Nga Kor Ming, put the national figure at 26,334 strata schemes and 2.91 million strata units served by 594 licensed property management firms — an average of 44 schemes, or 4,898 units, to a firm.
Occhio Tec publishes a register of twenty-nine buildings it has worked in, and eighteen of the twenty-nine are in its Mont Kiara and Dutamas group. That is a measure of where the company has worked rather than of the district itself: the register records nothing else — no system, no date, no value. If you want the boundary question answered for your own development, request a site survey, or message +60 11-6494 4931. What these towers have in common is set out in security systems for Kuala Lumpur high-rise buildings.
Is your Mont Kiara development one strata body, or several?
A development is more than one strata body when part of its common property has been designated as limited common property and a subsidiary management corporation constituted for it. The Strata Management Act 2013 defines limited common property as common property designated, in a comprehensive resolution under section 17A of the Strata Titles Act 1985, for the exclusive benefit of the proprietors of two or more, but not all, parcels, certified by the Director.
Where that has been done, the development has more than one body with authority over the hardware. Section 64(1) gives a subsidiary management corporation the same powers and duties as the management corporation for anything relating solely to its limited common property; section 64(2) leaves the management corporation its powers over the rest; section 64(3)(a) has the subsidiary body keep its own maintenance account and sinking fund account.
Read that onto a podium with three blocks and the security system becomes a boundary problem. The barrier at the shared vehicle entrance serves everyone, a lift lobby reader serves one block, and a recorder in one room may hold cameras from both sides of the line. The riser and backbone between blocks have to be traced against the designation on the drawings before anyone can say whose they are. The case for keeping the layers in one pair of hands is in every layer, one contractor — here it has to be made twice, to two sets of signatories.
Who holds the maintenance contract for each part of the system?
In a development with a subsidiary management corporation, the maintenance contract for a given part of the security system is held by whichever body signed it, not by “the building”. Section 64(4) of the Strata Management Act 2013 provides that a subsidiary management corporation “shall not enter into any contract or sue in the name of the management corporation”, and that the management corporation “shall have no liability for contracts made or debts or legal costs incurred” by it. Whoever signed is who answers.
Two signatories are how two blocks on one podium end up with two contractors, two recorders and one card that has to work on both — and with a fault at the boundary neither contractor was engaged to own. The by-laws do carry across: section 71(1) applies the management corporation’s by-laws to limited common property managed by a subsidiary management corporation unless they have been expressly amended. The service contracts do not.
| Part of the system | What has to be settled | Where the Act points |
|---|---|---|
| Barrier at the shared vehicle entrance | Whether the entrance is common property or was designated as limited common property | s.64(2) — the management corporation keeps what was not designated |
| A reader serving one block only | Whether that block’s common areas were designated and a subsidiary body constituted | s.64(1) — the subsidiary body holds the same powers for what relates solely to its limited common property |
| A recorder holding cameras from both sides of the line | Which account funds it, and in what share | s.64(3)(a) — each body’s accounts carry the expenses of its own limited common property |
| Riser and backbone between blocks | Which designation the cable route actually passes through | s.71(1) — the management corporation’s by-laws apply unless expressly amended |
| The maintenance contract itself | Which body signs it | s.64(4) — the management corporation answers for no contract the subsidiary body made |
One person does sit on both sides of that line. Section 63(4) requires at least one member of a subsidiary management committee also to be a member of the management corporation’s own committee, which makes them the person to put the table above to first. What the agreement must then oblige is in what a maintenance agreement must actually oblige; the position when the system was somebody else’s first is in takeover and maintenance of an existing system.
What happens to the access system when tenancies change often?
Frequent tenancy changes move a condominium’s access control from an installation problem to an administrative one. Cards are issued, lost and never cancelled; a steady flow of people at the lobby have a legitimate reason to be there and no record of it. The hardware copes with all of it. The register behind the hardware is what drifts.
What authority does a committee have over how units are let?
More than most committees use. Safety and security measures are the first matter section 70(2) of the Strata Management Act 2013 lists among those an additional by-law may regulate, and this district has already tested it. On 18 November 2015 the Commissioner of Building Kuala Lumpur issued Circular 2015/2016, instructing every joint management body and management corporation to curb short-term rental in and around the city. One Mont Kiara management corporation then passed a house rule prohibiting the use of the units for business or short-term rentals, and enforced it.
The owners challenged the rule under section 70(5), which bars an additional by-law from restricting any dealing with a parcel. In 2020 the Federal Court dismissed the appeal in Innab Salil & Ors v Verve Suites Mont’ Kiara Management Corporation, holding that the lettings were licences rather than tenancies and so were not dealings at all. That building’s land carried a commercial condition, so the land-use half of the case does not read across to every tower; the reasoning behind the by-law power does. The High Court, earlier in the same case, put that power this way:
the SMA is a social legislation wherein the MC is given the power to make by-laws for safety and security measures
A rule is only as good as the system that evidences a breach of it: a card population the committee can reconcile against the parcel count, a revocation route that works the day a tenancy ends (why a condominium access card stops working), a visitor record that survives the walk from guardhouse to lift (condominium visitor management), and a car park entry record that can be tied to a time (condominium car park entry).
What should a Mont Kiara committee check first in its condominium security system?
A Mont Kiara committee reviewing its condominium security system should settle five things before it asks anyone for a price. All five are answerable from documents the building already holds or can ask for in writing, and doing them first is what stops a tender being written around the wrong boundary.
- Whether limited common property has been designated and a subsidiary management corporation constituted — and if so, where the line runs on the drawings.
- Every head-end in the development on one list: what it is, where it sits, whose property it stands on, which account pays for it.
- The number of live access cards against the number of parcels, and who may cancel one.
- The oldest recording still held on each camera, read on one day and put in writing — how that number shrinks is in condominium CCTV footage retention.
- The route the cabling takes between blocks, and whose designation it passes through.
What should a Mont Kiara committee check in the equipment itself?
In the equipment itself there are four checks, and in a multi-block development each of them has a boundary attached. Whether one credential can be enrolled in both controllers decides whether a resident needs two cards; where the recorder and the controllers physically stand decides who can reach them; the days actually on the disk decide whether an incident can be reconstructed at all; and the route for releasing a clip decides what happens afterwards.
- Card technology either side of the line. Two bodies can buy two incompatible controllers in good faith. The symptoms when one card has to serve both are in card and reader faults in a condominium.
- Where the head-end lives, and who may enter that room. Worked through in what a condominium security control room needs.
- Whether the recorder is recording, camera by camera. The faults that hide until the day footage is wanted are in condominium CCTV not recording.
- The route for releasing a clip. Who may be given footage, on what conditions, is in condominium CCTV footage requests.
Three buildings here have put their own systems on the record, which is worth more than anything a contractor can say about them. Kiara 1888’s manager names CCTV, access control and barrier gate systems; Kiara Designer Suites’ letter covers the maintenance and improvement of that building’s security access systems. Residensi 22 Mont’ Kiara’s puts the outcome plainly:
Since the implementation and upgrading of systems such as CCTV surveillance, barrier gate operations, and access control, we have experienced improved reliability and stability across our facilities.
Occhio Tec works on multiple systems in high-rise buildings — barrier, door and lift access; CCTV, analogue, IP and central monitoring; intercom; networking and fibre — across Mont Kiara, Bangsar, KLCC, Desa Park City, Bukit Jalil, Petaling Jaya, Cyberjaya, Putrajaya and Klang, a reach still growing, and takes over systems another contractor installed. A survey puts the equipment half of the checks above in writing for your own development: every head-end on one list, the cable route between blocks, the live card count, and the days actually held on each disk. Which body designated what, and which account pays, comes from the building’s own records. Request a site survey, or message +60 11-6494 4931.
Questions Mont Kiara committees ask
Q-01Our development has three blocks but only one management corporation. Does any of this apply?
The contracting half of it does not. Limited common property exists only where it has been designated in a comprehensive resolution under section 17A of the Strata Titles Act 1985 and the Director has certified that a subsidiary management corporation is constituted. Absent that, one body holds one maintenance account and one sinking fund for the whole development. The boundary question then stops being a legal one and becomes an engineering one.
Q-02Does the Verve Suites decision mean our building can ban short-term letting?
It establishes that such a rule is not automatically void, not that any particular rule is good. The case concerned commercial service suites on land whose express condition was commercial, and the court harmonised that condition with the by-law power. Whether your own rule stands turns on your title and on how the rule was passed, a question for the building’s solicitor rather than for its contractor.
Q-03One recorder serves cameras belonging to two different bodies. Who pays for it?
Whatever the two bodies agree in writing before the invoice arrives. Section 64(3)(a) gives a subsidiary management corporation its own accounts for the common expenses of its limited common property, so an asset serving both sides of the line sits squarely in neither. Splitting one recorder is usually cheaper than buying a second; what is never cheap is discovering the question after something has failed.