A palatial bungalow sits at 20A Meng Suan Road, in stark contrast to Nos. 20 to 28 – old one-storey terrace houses, most of them with zinc roofs.

Over the past 10 years, families and workers have moved in and out of the nine terrace houses, which sit on land owned by Mr Ong Beng Chong, who lives in the bungalow.

In recent years, Mr Ong has been trying to get the occupants out so that he could redevelop the land.

The job looks simple enough, given that he is the landlord and calls the shots.

Except that the 21,066 sq ft piece of land in Mandai has a history that dates back to the 1950s, when people could own the land, and let others build houses on it in return for ‘ground rent’.

In this case, that amounted to between $7 and $20 a month.

As of January 2008, the plot had an indicative price of around $250 to $260 per sq ft. Inclusive of the development charge, this would put its worth at about $5 million.

Mr Ong sent quit notices to tenants, with offers of compensation.

But he found several unwilling to budge.

Then the takeover battle started.

In March last year, he sued to evict the home owners of Nos. 21 and 23 after they refused his $40,000 compensation. He failed.

Justice Lai Siu Chiu ruled that Mr Ong’s father had, in 1959, sold the two houses to Mr Yeo Ang Moo and Ms Victoria Jayaram’s father, at a price for which they could have bought houses outright in other parts of Singapore.

Mr Ong’s offer of $40,000 compensation then was ‘derisory’ and not a reasonable sum compared to the $5 million he stood to gain by auctioning off the land on which the row of houses stood.

Although Mr Ong lost the suit then, he appealed further and the case was subsequently settled through mediation.

He acquired the two units and the land they sat on.

He then moved on to acquire one more unit, settling the matter with the unit owner out of court.

Retiree Goh Kim Thong of No. 24, however, held out. He refused $225,000 and wanted between $1.8 million and $2 million instead. Mr Ong applied to evict him.

Mr Goh had bought the house for $10,000 in 1983 from the previous owner and lived there, paying a $7 monthly ground rent.

Based on the original 1959 agreement, Mr Goh argued in court he was entitled ‘to squat on the land at $7 per month until the 999-year lease ran out in 2883′, according to court documents.

Twice, the High Court warned Mr Goh that he might not end up getting the amount he wanted.

Twice, Mr Goh insisted on pressing his case, never mind that independent valuers had placed the value of the 51-year-old buildings at between $67,000 and $74,000 – far lower than what he had been offered.

Mr Goh, who represented himself, had taken what Justice Chan Seng Onn described as ‘a gamble’.

He lost.

Justice Chan said the law to repossess such land is clear. The original land owner could retake the land as long as the building owner was reasonably compensated.

He awarded him $74,000 for the house based on its present condition and ordered him to hand over the premises within four months.

Mr Goh, who does not live at No. 24, signalled that he would be fighting on with an appeal.

The house is now occupied by six workers from Malaysia who are renting the house for $180 each. Mr Pang Kah Peng, 48, a tiling worker who has been living there for six years, said: ‘We’ve heard before that we are supposed to move out, but we still don’t know when. No one has told us anything.’

It is now four units down for Mr Ong. Two others are occupied by Mr Ong’s family and relatives.

That leaves just Nos. 22, 26 and 28.

No. 28 is owned by the Lim Clan Association. Member Lim Teck Huat, 78, a retiree, said the clan had been offered $225,000 for it, but may want to ask for more.

‘We have been here for over 20 years and don’t have an alternative location yet. The house is so big, surely we should be given more,’ he said.

The caretaker of the clan’s premises, Mr Soh Boon Ang, 71, has a different problem: ‘I’ve been living here alone for 10 years. I’ll have nowhere to go if we have to move out and I have to get an HDB flat.’

Source: Sunday Times, 11 Jul 2010

He added that the law to repossess such land is clear.

The case has a precedent. In 1973, a landowner successfully evicted someone who bought an attap house on his land and paid $3 ground rent per month.

The judge had concluded that the landowner should be allowed to recover possession of the land, provided he made reasonable compensation to the defendant.

Lawyers said the latest case was a throwback to more than 50 years ago when it was a practice for some landowners to allow others to build houses on their land and reside in these houses, provided they continued to pay rent for the land as ground tenants.

Mr Patrick Tan, a lawyer who handles property cases, said it is very rare to find people paying ground rent in Singapore now.

‘Most of the time now, a landowner will own both the structure on the land and the land. Developers, for example, will buy both the property and land when a place goes en bloc,’ he said.

He added that the case is ‘archaic and complicated’ and that, in the past, the only way for a tenant to lay claim to the land was to prove he had an ‘interest’, that is, had developed roots and ownership there over a very long period.

Another property lawyer, who declined to be named, said the practice of ground rent dates back to the time of slums when it would have cost landowners nothing to allow a tenant to beautify and improve their land by squatting on it and building a house.

Source: Sunday Times, 11 Jul 2010

AN AGED couple from Taiwan have sued their son in the Singapore High Court for the return of the title deeds of two condominium apartments worth about $1.7 million.

In their lawsuit, Mr Yang Min-hao, 76, and Madam Yang Yuan Hsiang-ying, 71, said they funded the $344,500 downpayment for the flats but used their son’s name as they were worried about not being able to get a bank loan.

The couple, who live in Taipei, say that their son was merely holding the properties and rental incomes from the flats in trust for them.

Their son, Mr Yang Chuang-yang, 49, who has lived in Singapore for more than 10 years, does not dispute he did not take part in the property purchases. But he claims that his parents gave the flats to him – an assertion the couple, who have five other children, deny.

The three-day hearing, which started yesterday, revolves around apartments in Parc Oasis in Jurong, bought in 1992, and Central Green in Tiong Bahru, bought in 1993.

The couple arranged for their daughter, Ms Yang Sheng Cheng, who was then living in Singapore, to buy the properties, telling her to rent out the units and use the income to service the housing loan instalments, property taxes and maintenance fees.

To secure the housing loan, the couple decided to put the properties in Chuang-yang’s name. He was still in Taiwan at the time.

The couple transferred $160,000 for the Parc Oasis apartment and $184,500 for the Central Green apartment to Sheng Cheng as downpayment.

The rest was funded by housing loans obtained by Sheng Cheng here, and the couple later transferred money to her to maintain the apartments, which were rented out. The couple said they had explicitly told their son that the flats were intended for investment purposes and to serve as a source of income during their retirement.

In 1997, Chuang-yang moved to Singapore and, two years later, took over his sister’s task of collecting rent. In October 2007, he signed a letter promising that in the event both properties were sold, he would give all the proceeds to his mother.

But when they asked him for the title deeds last year, he refused to hand them over unless they paid him $250,000.

In his defence, Chuang-yang said he was initially not aware that his parents had bought the apartments in his name and found out about it only in 2000. He claims the money did not come from his parents but from the boyfriend of another sister.

Chuang-yang denies that he was holding the properties or rental income in trust for his parents, saying instead that the flats were meant for him as gifts.

Source: Straits Times, 25 May 2010

Ivan Tey, who is 35, owns a four-room flat in Jurong West.

Although he had rented the flat to other tenants, he approached different housing agents in October and November last year to look for prospective tenants to rent the flat to.

He found four different tenants and collected rental deposits from them.

The tenants later realised Tey had signed tenancy agreements with other tenants and found other tenants living in the flat.

They then separately made police reports.

Tey’s lawyer, Mr Joseph Chen, told the court that Tey committed the offences as he was in financial difficulty and had to support two young children.

He said Tey’s father is receiving treatment for cancer and urged the court to impose a shorter jail sentence.

Source: Channel News Asia, 24 May 2010

The infringement occurred when the development was being built in the 1990s. Great Victoria Development (GVD), through its interim management council, had negotiated with the authorities for a temporary occupation licence (TOL) for the encroaching portion of land.

But the residents of Country Grandeur in Lorong Puntong allegedly only discovered there was a TOL during the annual general meeting last December, when someone questioned the $120 payment to the authorities for the licence – an entry which cropped up in the accounts of the estate’s management corporation.

The plot in question is a strip of land, about the size of a small room, by the wall in the swimming pool area.

Residents said they were unhappy that they were not informed that GVD had negotiated with the authorities for a TOL.

The developer had run the interim management council for two terms until 1999, when it turned the management of the new estate over to residents.

Some in the 66-unit estate, which is located off Sin Ming Avenue, felt that the developer should have solved the problem instead of passing it on to them.

In a letter to GVD this January, the management council, writing on behalf of residents, gave the developer two alternatives.

One, that it tear down the wall and rebuild it and any facilities affected by the demolition work. Or, two, that it buy over the strip of land with all costs to be borne by GVD.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by MediaCorp, residents also demand the developer return all the money tapped from the management corporation’s funds to pay the TOL fee over the years.

Some residents see it as a matter of principle, while others want the issue settled so that they can have peace of mind.

“The amount ($120) is not important but the ramifications are,” said one.

“What would happen if, one day, the Government decides to develop the State land or stop the TOL?”

When contacted, Mr David Hwang, who runs GVD with his father Hwang Sin Jen, declined comment.

GVD owns several units in Country Grandeur and the younger Mr Hwang, who previously served on the management council, is living there with his family.

MediaCorp understands the management council is seeking legal advice.

Source: Today, 12 May 2010

This is how it works: A conman, using a fake name, poses as a landlord with rooms for rent at low prices.

He gives fake addresses of apartments in areas like Orchard and Chinatown.

He refuses to arrange for a viewing of the apartments, claiming that he is in Britain on internship and will be back here only by the end of next month.

He asks potential tenants to e-mail him a scan of their passport, and sign a contract e-mailed to them.

He asks them to wire a month’s rent and a security deposit to a Western Union account, and says he will post the keys to them. To reassure them, he sends images of the apartments and a scan of what he claims to be his passport.

A check with a thread on rental scams in Singapore on online forum scamwarners.com showed that at least 14 people have received such messages.

The scammer uses different pseudonyms, like Richard Willem Tibor, Jane Louise Millar and Tan Nee, and asks for sums of between $1,100 and $2,500.

Figures from the police show that, on average, one person falls victim to such rental scams every day. Last year, police received 324 reports of rental scams, down from 355 reports in 2008.

Mr Manuel Nacionales, 44, a Filipino systems analyst who has been working here for four years, almost became a victim.

He posted a request to rent a room on share-accommodation. sg, a website that links potential house- or flat-mates, in February this year.

Within a day, he got an offer of an apartment at 14 Scotts Road ? the address of shopping mall Far East Plaza.

In an e-mail sent from tantongnee@hotmail.com, the sender said he was a Singaporean named Tan Nee and could be called on +44-701-115-1047.

He asked Mr Nacionales to send a month’s rent of $700 and a security deposit of $400 to a Western Union account.

Mr Nacionales did receive a scan of the passport of a man called Tan Tong Nee, but did not wire any money after his colleagues advised him against it.

When my paper called the number posing as a potential tenant, the man identified himself as Tan Nee Long in a pseudo- British accent.

Pressed for the address of the rental apartment, he said that it was 202 Far East Apartment.

But a check with Far East Plaza’s residence showed that all its unit numbers are in four digits.

He could not arrange for a viewing of the apartment as he is doing a master’s programme in computer programming in London and has no friends in Singapore, he said.

He would send the keys only after the lease contract was signed and payment made.

“You have nothing to worry about, I’ll be sending you the contract and scanned passport of myself,” he said repeatedly.

When my paper asked him about forum postings about him being a scammer, he said: “No, I don’t do such things… People keep saying rubbish on the Internet.

It’s because I’m not gonna lease the room to them, that’s why they say I’m a scammer.”

He said that he was renting out the apartment on behalf of his mother, who owns it.

When told that he was speaking to my paper, he said “no problem”, but then hung up.

Scamwarners.com’s adviser, Mr David Jenson, 40, said one should never pay or send personal details to a stranger online.

Insist on seeing the title deeds, said Consumers Association of Singapore executive director Seah Seng Choon.

Check out the rightful owners of a property on the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore’s website, and look for properties via reputable websites like www.iproperty.com and www.propertyguru.com, said Mr Nelson Tan, a council member of the Institute of Estate Agents.

A police spokesman said tenants should request all parties to be present when signing tenancy documents, and should not pay large sums in cash.

Source: my paper, 12 May 2010

ONCE prominent bank owner Agus Anwar has failed to make the initial payment for rent owed to Ngee Ann Development despite promising to do so by April 30, sources told BT.

BT understands that Mr Agus, who used to own banks in Indonesia, had proposed on April 28 to make a partial payment of the $1.2 million that his investment holding firm, Investoasia, owes Ngee Ann Development. The proposal was made just as the landlord was about to auction Investoasia’s property to offset the unpaid rent. Ngee Ann Development then called off the auction.

Sources told BT that an auction to sell Investoasia’s furniture and movable property will now be held in late May, and Mr Agus is currently negotiating with Ngee Ann Development on making payments for the outstanding rent.

This is not the first time the investment holding firm has failed on its promise to pay up. According to sources, Mr Agus had made numerous promises to pay the arrears owed, such as proposing an instalment plan, but did not make payment.

Investoasia’s repeated failure to pay up prompted Ngee Ann Development to file a suit against it in February this year.

According to court documents, Investoasia owes Ngee Ann Development rent for two offices it occupied on the 24th and 25th storeys of Ngee Ann City’s Tower A.

It owes Ngee Ann Development 13 months’ rent amounting to about $900,000 for the 24th-floor office. It also has to pay the landlord additional rent after failing to hand over the office despite a notice to do so by Dec 11 last year.

Ngee Ann Development then seized the office – and Investoasia’s property in it – through a court order issued on April 1.

Investoasia also owes Ngee Ann Development another $190,000 for office space it rented on the 25th floor between September and November 2008.

The current suit is among the many filed by creditors against Mr Agus and the firms controlled by him and his family.

Last December, he applied for a stay of bankruptcy proceedings, saying that he was looking to raise income from certain sources. His application was turned down – a decision he is appealing against.

Indonesian-born Mr Agus, now in his late 50s, moved here in 2000 to start afresh amid the fallout from the 1997 financial crisis. He became a Singapore citizen in 2004, the year news reports quoted Indonesian officials as saying that he owed the Indonesian government 3.2 trillion rupiah.

The money, equivalent to $633 million at the time, was said to have been used to bail out two of his Indonesia-based banks, which collapsed as a result of the 1997 financial crisis.

The banks, Bank Istimarat and Bank Pelita, are now defunct. According to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (Ibra), the two banks misused the Indonesian government’s emergency loan.

Data from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) show that Investoasia was set up in 2001 and is controlled by Mr Agus and Marcel Tjia Han Liong, chief executive and executive director of Interra Resources, a petroleum exploration and production company which is listed in Singapore and Australia. The Ngee Ann City office on the 24th floor is still listed as its registered office.

The latest financial data provided by Investoasia to Acra dates back to 2006, where it reported a $24 million loss – after tax from continuing operations – and $4.8 million in revenue.

Companies it has an interest in include Keppel Telecommunications and Transportation (Keppel T&T), in which it had a 6.5 per cent stake, according to Keppel T&T’s 2009 annual report.

In January this year, High Court judge Lee Seiu Kin ordered Mr Agus to repay a $10.5 million loan he received in 2008 from Orion Oil, an investment firm.

The loan, secured through a mortgage on assets such as shares in Keppel T&T, was to have been repaid in three months with $500,000 in interest. However, Mr Agus filed a suit in court arguing that the loan was void because Orion Oil did not have a licence to lend money. This claim was rejected by Justice Lee. Mr Agus is appealing against the decision.

Last November, Mr Agus’s two sons were ordered by the High Court to pay $15 million that their father owes to the local branch of Societe Generale Bank & Trust after they signed documents agreeing to be liable for his debts.

The sons appealed against the summary judgement and the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal at a hearing last month. As a result, the case will proceed to be heard in a full trial at a later date, where the facts of the case will be examined.

Source: Business Times, 8 May 2010

In remand since July last year, Cheong faces 74 counts of cheating tenants of rent money and obtaining credit as an undischarged bankrupt.

When she appeared in the subordinate courts last October, the 40-year-old told the court she had wanted to plead guilty so as to fast track her sentence. She wanted to resume work as soon as possible and support her four children.

The single mother, however, decided to fight her case after her mitigation plea was rejected due to her insistence on maintaining innocence and a lawyer was subsequently assigned to her by the Law Society.

But in court on Tuesday, Cheong told District Judge Toh Yung Cheong that she would be representing herself as she had discharged the Law Society’s lawyer.

One of the victims, Mr Liu Guo, a Chinese national, told the court that Cheong had told him she was the owner of a flat at Geylang Bahru.

She told him that she was then pregnant and needed money, so Mr Liu withdrew S$3,000 from his bank account and gave it to her. He also transferred another S$4,000 from his bank account to hers.

However, when Mr Liu and his wife went to view the flat, he found out that the unit belonged to an Indian family. He telephoned Cheong but she told him he should inform her first if he wanted to view the flat again.

Refuting Mr Liu’s testimony, Cheong said that she had wanted to strike a rental deal with the flat owners, but Mr Liu jumped the gun and alarmed the owners.

The trial continues on Wednesday.

Source: Channel News Asia, 4 May 2010

Agus Anwar may have once owned banks in Indonesia, but now he is owing rent.

The Singapore investment holding firm controlled by the once prominent banker has proposed a plan at the eleventh hour to pay $1.2 million in arrears it owes Ngee Ann Development – just as the landlord was about to auction the firm’s property to offset the unpaid rent.

Sources told BT that the public auction, which was supposed to be held on Wednesday, was called off after Investoasia (formerly known as Kapital Asia) proposed to make an initial payment of part of the arrears it owes by the end of the week.

No date has been set for another auction – if it is on the cards – to sell Investoasia’s furniture and moveable property.

According to court documents, Investoasia owes Ngee Ann Development rent for two offices it occupied on the 24th and 25th storeys of Ngee Ann City’s Tower A.

Investoasia owes Ngee Ann Development 13 months rent amounting to about $900,000 for the 24th floor office.

It also has to pay the landlord additional rent after it failed to hand over the office despite a notice to do so by Dec 11 last year.

Ngee Ann Development seized the office – and Investoasia’s property in it – through a court order issued on April 1.

Investoasia also owes Ngee Ann Development another $190,000 for office space it rented on the 25th floor between September and November 2008.

The investment holding firm’s failure to pay the arrears prompted Ngee Ann Development to file a suit against it in February through its lawyer Edward Tiong of Allen & Gledhill.

Early this month, an order issued by the High Court allowed Ngee Ann Development to auction property owned by Investoasia located at its former 24th floor office – unless it pays up.

Mr Agus and his lawyers have declined to comment.

The suit is one of many filed by creditors against Mr Agus and firms controlled by him and his family.

Last December, he applied for a stay of bankruptcy proceedings, saying he was looking to raise income from certain sources. His application was turned down – a decision he is appealing against.

Indonesian-born Mr Agus, now in his late 50s, moved here in 2000 to start afresh amid the fallout from the 1997 financial crisis, which hit Indonesia hard.

He became a Singapore citizen in 2004 – the year news reports quoted Indonesian officials as saying that he owed the Indonesian government 3.2 trillion rupiah.

The money, equivalent to $633 million at the time, was said to have been used to bail out two of his Indonesian-based banks which collapsed as a result of the 1997 crisis.

The banks, Bank Istimarat and Bank Pelita, are now defunct. According to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), Bank Istimarat and Bank Pelita misused the Indonesian government’s emergency loan.

When BT visited Investoasia’s former office on the 24th floor of Ngee Ann City Tower A last week, the premises were locked. A notice instructed that mail be delivered next door – which houses listed telecommunications firm Teledata. Some Investoasia employees were in the Teledata office but declined to speak.

According to data from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), Investoasia was set up in 2001 and is controlled by Mr Agus and Marcel Tjia Han Liong, chief executive and executive director of Interra Resources, a petroleum exploration and production company which is listed in Singapore and Australia.

The latest financial data provided by Investoasia to ACRA dates back to 2006, where it reported a $24 million loss – after tax from continuing operations – and $4.8 million in revenue.

Companies it has an interest in include Keppel Telecommunications and Transportation (Keppel T&T), in which it had a 6.5 per cent stake, according to Keppel T&T’s 2009 annual report.

In January this year, High Court judge Lee Seiu Kin ordered Mr Agus to repay a $10.5 million loan he received in 2008 from investment company Orion Oil.

The loan was secured by a mortgage on shares in Keppel T&T, among various things, and was to have been repaid in three months with $500,000 in interest. However, Mr Agus argued in court that the loan was void since Orion Oil did not have a licence to lend money. This claim was rejected by Justice Lee.

Mr Agus is appealing against the decision.

Last November, Mr Agus’s two sons were ordered by the High Court to pay $15 million their father owes to the local branch of Societe Generale Bank & Trust after they signed documents agreeing to be liable for his debts.

When Mr Agus defaulted on payments in October 2008, the bank terminated the credit services it offered him. It held off taking legal action on condition that his sons Patrick Adrian Anwar and Andrew Francis Anwar take out mortgages on two apartments in Devonshire Road, which he bought in their names.

The sons signed an agreement to pay the bank all the money their father owed.

When Mr Agus again failed to make payments, the bank turned to the sons – who also failed to pay. This led the bank to sue Mr Agus, his sons and two investment holding companies, each owned by one brother.

Last July, the sum due to the bank was about $17 million.

Some $2.3 million has been recovered from the sale of shares, payment of dividends and sale proceeds from the two mortgages.

Source: Business Times, 30 Apr 2010

He had handed over 5 per cent of the Tanjong Katong Road shophouses’ total worth of $7.7 million thinking he could buy them for commercial use. But he later found out they were partially restricted to residential use.

Mr Ma claimed the seller, Goodman Development, had misrepresented the shophouses as being for commercial use, and wants it to return his money.

But Goodman denies misleading him and said he should have conducted better checks.

Yesterday, Mr Ma, an Australian and permanent resident here, told the High Court he paid the option fee on behalf of renovation and interior design firm Aqua Art, of which he was a director.

As he already owned a residential property, he was not eligible to buy any more meant for residential use. Neither could Aqua Art, as it was foreign-owned.

The trouble began on June 16 three years ago. Mr Ma said his property agent Odelia Tan told him Goodman’s property agent Katherine Poh confirmed that the shophouses were zoned for commercial use.

When he inspected them that day with business associate Andrew Neary and Aqua Art director Camilla Hall, Ms Poh confirmed they were for commercial use, although people were living in them, Mr Ma told the court.

However, when Ms Poh took the stand yesterday, questioned by Mr Ma’s lawyer Kenneth Pereira, she denied telling him that.

Ms Poh said she made it quite clear the two-storey shophouses were meant for commercial use only on the ground floor.

She also claimed that at no point did Mr Ma tell her he was a foreigner, which meant he would be ruled out of buying the shophouses. When asked why she did not check, she replied: ‘He never tells me, I never probe.’

On the day of the site visit, Mr Ma paid a fifth of the 5 per cent option to purchase fee.

Within three weeks, he paid the remainder so that he could exercise the option to buy.

But he later found out the properties were partially zoned as residential, pulled out of the deal, and sought a refund.

Goodman refused, and pointed out that nowhere in the purchase documents was it stated the properties were for commercial use.

Lawyer Felicia Ng also argued in defence statements that Goodman did not know Aqua Art was foreign-owned.

The hearing before Justice Choo Han Teck continues today.

Source: Straits Times, 20 Apr 2010