STRIPPED of their income since early this year when the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme was frozen, agents and consultants were furious to hear they now had to return the ”deposits” paid to them by the applicants.

Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Nancy Shukri had recently asked the companies and agents providing consulting services to the programme applicants to “return their deposits”.

MM2H Agents’ Association president Anthony Liew said the members were not paid deposits but consultancy fees for their assistance.

It was the practice for the applicants to pay the agent 50-70% of the fees upfront, he said.

He stressed that the money was not refundable as the minister believed.

The money is for the preparation and submission of documents, legwork and travel costs, Liew said.

“The documents are handed over to the MM2H officer who will check if everything is in order before sealing the application for approval. A number is given to the client for future reference.

“At this point, the consultant agent has fulfilled his or her responsibility and the client pays the balance,” he said.

Liew said Nancy’s order for the refund of non-existent deposits had misled clients into thinking that the agents had taken their money and failed to submit their applications.

As a consequence, some clients have demanded to be reimbursed.

He said the government had in July rejected all MM2H applications made in January to June, which came up to about 5,000 applications. It was not clear why the applications were rejected or when the programme would resume.

“The clients had paid us to take care of the application process and we had completed our part of the work but at the end of the day, it is the ministry who approves the application.

“We do not guarantee that every application will be approved and we make this clear to the applicants before they pay the service fees.”

Liew said minister Nancy had yet to respond to any of the programme agents’ request for a meeting since she took office in March.

“We understand if she lacked understanding of the MM2H scheme when she first assumed office but it is irresponsible to say clients can have their ‘deposits’ refunded if their applications are rejected.”

‘Unreasonable’

Iconic Living Group managing director Michael Cheam said the company was waiting for the government to say when the scheme will be resumed so that it could resubmit 298 MM2H applications that were rejected this year.

“The procedure is to have the applicant pay half of the fees upfront – we call this an initial payment – and the balance, or the final payment, when the application process is completed. It’s not a deposit or booking fee,” Cheam said.

“The money pays for the cost of taking the client for a health check, bank processing fees, translations, transport and labour costs. We do not know what the minister means by ‘deposit’.”

He said a refund was only possible for cases where the client had made the initial payment but his application was not submitted because it had arrived after the MM2H programme was suspended.

“If we had taken the money but failed to make the application, then you can blame us, but we have already sent the complete set of documents to the relevant agencies.

“For the government to suddenly reject the applications and then tell us to refund the money is very unreasonable.”

‘We have fallen on hard times’

MOSL Planning (MM2H) Sdn Bhd owner Raja Ummi Hairima said the company charged a “professional fee” that was not refundable after work was done.

Ummi said clients were required to pay 80% of the fee upon engagement. This cost RM5,000-6,000.

She said some of the clients who had misunderstood the nature of the payments had wanted to sue the company but changed their minds after it was explained to them what the money was for.

Ummi said her clients were mostly from Japan.

There are 250 consultancy companies for the MM2H scheme and these companies are struggling to stay in business after the programme’s sudden suspension.

They complained that the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry had not bothered to talk to them about the decision or tell them if the rules for application had changed.

They said the sudden policy change had damaged Malaysia’s reputation and that some applicants had lost confidence in the scheme.

In the 14 years of the scheme’s existence, they said they had never encountered a situation where 90% of applications were rejected, which had incurred an estimated loss of RM776 million.

MM2H Agents’ Association’s Liew appealed for sympathy from the government.

“We have fallen on hard times, and we hope that the minister will meet with the industry players to understand our issues and listen to our recommendations so MM2H will retain its attraction and competitiveness.

“We also hope the ministry will lend us the necessary assistance to tide us over these tough times.

“Lastly, we hope the minister will quickly announce the resumption of the scheme to restore our livelihoods and at the same time, attract foreign direct investment and stimulate the various related sectors to boost the Malaysian economy.” – November 16, 2020.