Malaysia year 2020 national and state public holidays

The official 2020 national and state public holidays in Malaysia has been announced by Cabinet, Constitution and Inter-Government Relation Division (BKPP), Prime Minister Department.

There are 14 days of national holiday (12 national holidays, whereby Chinese New Year and Hari Raya Puasa have 2 days of holiday respectively, and all the rest are 1 day).

3 of them fall on Friday, 4 fall on Saturday, 2 fall on Sunday, and 2 fall on Monday. Most of the states will have around 4 state holidays in addition to the national holidays.

Chinese New Year falls on weekend Saturday and Sunday (25th and 26th January 2020). As such, Monday 27th January 2020 will also be a holiday.

Hari Raya Puasa falls on Sunday and Monday (24th and 25th May 2020).  As such, Tuesday 26th May 2020 will also be a holiday.

Unfortunately, Deepavali falls on Saturday (14th November 2020), which is already a weekend off day for many people.

Click here to download the table of Malaysia year 2020 gazetted national and state public holidays.

Upgrade Huawei Mate 20 series from EMUI 9.1 (Android Pie) to EMUI 10 (Android 10)

Huawei has already released the new EMUI 10 firmware with Android 10 to its Mate 20 series smartphones by now.

However, you might not be able to find it under the normal Settings > System & updates > Software update section of EMUI 9.1.

You will need to ensure your Huawei Mate 20 series handphone has been updated to the latest version of EMUI 9.1 (Android Pie). Then, you can proceed to search for EMUI 10 by using the HiCare app and perform the firmware upgrade from EMUI 9.1 to EMUI 10.

After you have open the HiCare app in your phone, make sure it has the latest version first. Go to Me > Settings > Check for updates. Your HiCare version should be 10.0.5.341 or above.

Then, go to Services > Update > Check for updates. You should be able to find EMUI 10 and perform the upgrade there.

Using professional home inspection service to check property defects

Home inspection is part of the essential process right after receiving vacant possession of brand new home from the property developer. Normally it is conducted by the buyer (new owner) of the property, and there is a 24 months defects liability period whereby the buyer can report any defect found in the property to the developer, and the developer has the obligation to rectify and fix the defects reported by the buyer.

There is another common scenario of home inspection. When the buyer is going to buy a pre-owned property, he can request to perform a home inspection to the property on sale, and get the seller to fix the defects found before signing the sales and purchase agreement (S&P) with the seller. This is because pre-owned property is normally sold as-is, without the 24 months warranty period as in the case of new property. It is imperative for the buyer to ensure the property is in good condition before signing the S&P with the seller. After the property is sold, the buyer will need to use his own money to fix for any problem with the property.

While home inspection can be performed by ourselves, it also worth to consider using professional home inspection service from a company that provide such service, because they have the knowledge, experience, skillset and related tools to perform detail home inspection. In addition, a complete home inspection can take several hours to finish checking, and another several hours to prepare the property defects report. Home inspection service charge is normally within 3-digit RM, depends on the size and type of the property to be checked.

The Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia (CIDB) has already established a guideline called the Quality Assessment System in Construction (QLASSIC), which is a system or method to measure and evaluate the workmanship quality of a building construction work based on Construction Industry Standard (CIS 7). When engaging with a home inspection service provider, you might want to ask if their service is conformance to QLASSIC standard or equivalent.

After confirmation to engage for home inspection service, the buyer will need to set an appointment with the service provider to visit the property to perform the inspection, which will usually take a half day.

The home inspection specialist will then visit the property with all the required tools, including camera (or handphone with camera), torchlight, magnifying glass, ruler, spirit level, stickers, electrical outlet tester, etc.

The scope of home inspection encompasses checking on house components and fitting of:

• Architectural: floor, wall, ceiling, door, window, stairs, drain, furniture, etc.
• Mechanical and electrical: lights, power, switch, socket, plumbing, sanitary fittings, etc.
• Specification compliance: area size measurement, fitting quantity, material used, etc.
• Water leakage testing in toilet, bathroom, balcony, basin, sink, etc.

Stickers will be used to mark down any detected defect point, and photo will be taken for documentation.

After the checking, a home inspection report will be compiled and delivered to the buyer.

The report will normally contain:

i) a summary of inspection result:

ii) a floor plan marking the defect areas:

iii) description of the defects with photo taken:

The home inspection report can easily go between 50 to 200 pages for normal home, depends on the amount of defects found.