Commodity Murabahah Home Financing in Malaysia in the Case of Abandoned Housing Projects: A Shariah Analysis on Its Operation

Commodity murabahah has received extensive exposure since the Islamic financial industry shifted from bay’ bithaman ajil for its banking and financial products. The muamalat based contract which is innovated from the classical tawarruq with certain modifications has proliferated in many of the retail products in Malaysia including home financing. This paper analyses the financing facility offered to Malaysian homebuyers to investigate the extent of safeguards present in the facility when there are project abandonments. The operation of commodity murabahah as practiced in Malaysia for houses under construction are discussed and analysed with respect to their operations to know whether they conform both in form and substance. The analysis is done via library research while semi-structured interviews on operation of the facilities are done with experts in the field. The study finds that the commodity murabahah facility catered lacks the necessary safeguards for customers of Islamic banks. This can further aggravate the situation of homebuyers who have no proper recourse when their under constructed houses are left abandoned by developers. The paper calls for a more Shariah based oriented facility for houses under construction which is close to its muamalat nature in order for the rights and obligations of parties involved in home financing be inherent.