- May 11, 2025
For Everyone with Questions
For Everyone with Questions
The house is located at Komplek Perumahan Anggrek Sari Alexandria, the owners live in Jakarta and Singapore and the house is advertised by a notary based in Batam.
I agreed with the owner in Jakarta via WhatsApp conversations to rent his house in November, following terms:
Attached are the screenshots of the communications in black & white
The notary is offering 3 units in the same komplek, Blok B Nomor 05, Blok B2-72 and Blok B2-73.
All units are in need of repairs, the damages in unit Blok B2-73 got heavy structural damages and is not considered safe anymore. We informed the owners about the condition of their house and even provided photo & video material. More than 2 months later, the house is still advertised for renting. The owners are not living in Batam and were most probably not aware of the condition of their properties.
The “agent” representing the family is most probably a relative, her work is highly unprofessional and questionable
The first contact with the owner was on 18 October, we quickly agreed to a 1-year contract, payment IDR 60 Million in rental fee and IDR 5 Million deposit.
The contract from the agent was full of mistakes, we contacted the owner for clarification and our lawyers in Jakarta had to rewrite the contract. There were 3 parties to sign the contract, 2 in Jakarta, and one in Singapore.
The owner informed me on 21 November that the house will “of course it will be completely repaired, tomorrow ms ponny and the team will check and can start repairs”. According to the landlord, the repairs should start on the 22nd of November.
Sadly, the agent interfere and refused to start repairs without a down payment, but she delayed the signing of the contract.
Even though we informed him that the agent is not acting according to the agreement between him and me, the Landlord ignored my messages after the 25th of November.
It all started with a faulty contract from Ms Ponny’s office, some of the fields were empty and could have been filled with additional content after signatures. There were also wrong dates and the wrong amount of the agreed transfers. To me, it looked like a re-used contract which got slightly changed by a very unprofessional person.
Ms Ponny and her staff tried to force me to sign the faulty contract and transfer the deposit, even though common business practice in Indonesia is to sign a contract before any money transfers. My lawyers in Jakarta had to rewrite the contracts to finally have proper legal documents.
To speed up the progress, I offered that the 2 owners in Jakarta sign the contract and send it back to the lawyer’s office where it gets scanned and emailed and signed by the 3rd party in Singapore, scanned and emailed back and I will immediately transfer the deposit, while the original documents are getting into the mail and get signed again.
Even though they managed to send the contract overnight from Jakarta to Batam, the contract was laying in the office for several days as the notary Ms Ponny insisted to bring the contract to the 3rd owner personally. She had plans to visit Singapore by end of the week and put her convenience above the timing issue. That behaviour dragged out the signing, the transfer of the deposit and the repairs. Explaining the situation to one of the owners, the notary Ms Ponny confirmed to start renovations the next day, but in fact, there were no repairs. They finally started after the missing signature from Singapore.
For some reason, I was still not allowed to sign the contract. Ms Ponny led me to believe that everything is according to plan and even sent pictures of the partially signed contracts. According to the contract, the lease should have started 1 week ago, but the renovations are still not finished and the office still refuses to let me sign the contract. Even though, she and her staff consistently tried to force me to transfer the total sum immediately before signing the contract or finishing repairs of the house.
The actions of Ms Ponny were highly questionable, even though she is a registered notary in Indonesia.
One of the staff tried to force me to sign the faulty contract and make full payment immediately. Her role was mainly to get me to transfer the money before signing the contract.
Besides a big loss of my time wasted on this deal and the costs of lawyers involved, I now have to restart from the beginning and look for a new place, adding extra costs by extending my expiring lease. It also led to the loss of the seasonal business, as I have to look for a new unit now.
Never do any payments in advance, always agree to the terms first and how to execute step by step.
