My partner & i recently signed a 3 yr tenancy agreement with leading property giant and handover is imminent. The specifcations schedule stated "Walls : 3.2m height brick walls with emulsion paint finish and security mesh on top." We asked landlord when the walls will be done up (currently only boards), the GM of the mall said it was their typo mistake and said only the adjoining wall with neighbour is brickwall, the rest is take over by tenant 'As Is'. When we highlighted that even adjoining wall is not a brickwall, he now says all walls are not provided which is the norm for all their malls in S'pore as it is market practice. We insisted on a compromise and he agreed verbally that he will provide standard walls, not brick walls. Next day, he claimed he was only referring to the adjoining wall with neighbour and not entire perimeter of unit. He says they will sue us if we terminate and that we are taking advantage of a typo mistake. Q1 - Do we have a good case to back out? Q2 - Can we get back our 3mths rent, stamp duty, their lawyers fees etc.... Q3 - Could this be a costly (esp if we need to appoint a lawyer) & lengthy process? If we pay for walls ourselves, it would cost abt $10k. .

Hi, my tenancy agmt is for 2 years. I have completed a year. I wish to breach the contract due to inability to pay the rental as all my co-tenants intend to work out of Singapore. Since I can't sublet, I intend to terminate and understood deposit is not refundable. However, what other damages I must be aware of? In the contract, it stated I can lawfully terminate the agmt by written notice. According to agent, lawfully termination is only meant for Diplomatic Clause. In the contract, nothing state about Diplomatic Clause. Does it automatically imply that written notice is only for diplomatic clause? I appreciate your help. .

Hi Mr Chang Would like to seek your legal advice on the following. I had passed S$1K deposit to my agent and my agent will settle everything for me for a purchase of a resale flat. My agent had hand over the cheque to the seller. The seller (husb) had signed on the OTP form but not the seller's wife. Seller (Wife & Husb) had divorced. And till now seller's wife had not signed on the OTP form. According to me agent, he told me that the decision of selling the flat can be made solely by the husb. My question is can the seller (husb) tell me he do not want to exercise the OTP anymore which means that he does not want to sell the house to me anymore and willing to refund the deposit to me. Can I the buyer exercise any rights on him? Can I demand that he had to sell the house to me due to the fact that he had accepted the price for the house and also accepted my S$1K deposit. I am very confused because agents always say "Law always protect the Buyers". Now i am very worried if the seller's wife doesnt want to sign on the OTP. .

I would like purchase a private property jointly with my friend. However I'm a HDB owner with my husband. We have yet to utilise our housing grant and second hdb concessionary loan and hope to do so. As such, I was thinking to ask a relative of mine to be the co owner with my friend instead. Monetary wise, I will be the one paying. Would it be possible to have a legal binding contract between me and my relative to indicate that costs and proceeds be my responsibility but yet keeping myself out of the ownership as I would like to utilise my HDB grant. Would this be feasible? Secondly, would there be any legal implication for my friend? Thank you very much CG. .

My sis is single which my parents wish to include her name as 3rd owner of the present flat. Can My mum and dad make a will under no circumstances this flat will be not sold unles she wish to marry. And if she wish to downgrade at a later stage when my parents are not around. How will the estate be shared among the other siblings if the the flat is sold. Can the other sibiling sue her under the civil suit right to claim for thier potion of estate. How can she be protected from this disputes. How much will it cost to hire a lawyer and to draft a will. .

CEHA is a common exam for house agents n what does this exam covers? What are their role acting as house agent after passing this exam? Most of them do not know the basis requirements like whether two unrelated PR (one single and one married)can joint together to purchase a private condo using CPF. Where do I stand if I am a victim n have to forfeit the 1% option money after knowing that we could not proceed with using CPF? .

We have purchased a unit from a developer, the apt will only be ready two years from now. Due to disagreement, I wish to withdraw my share. What is the cost or fee involved? If my friend decided not to take my share, can we sell it as sub sale? .

1) Can I get my spouse or relative to be the witness for the signing of Shop Tenancy Agreement?

2) Can I pre-print the name and NRIC of the Landlord and Tenant beside the signature portion? .

Hello There, we sibling bought and excutive flat. my bro first owner,my sis second owner, me third owner. we bought in full payment no loan. now we 3 sibling having alots of problems staying together with my bro. so we decide to sell the house, but my bro didn't want to sell. so we can't sell or withdraw our share from that house without my bro approval. no matter what happend he won't sell. my questions is there anyway i can sell or withdraw our share from that house whithout my bro approval? he is willing to pay back our share, but he don't want to deal with us or goto HDB together and solve this problems. what he say u hired a lawyer and i deal with the lawyer. if we can't sell, yet to withdraw our share we need to use lawyer, that will cause us a boom to pay lawyers fees. right now my mind is blur already donno what to do. i hope by posting in this forum some kind soul can help us what to do or is there away that we can use lawyer to take out our share without have to deal with my bro. if have where can i find that lawyer and house much will he charge for the fees estimate. for yr info no matter what he will nvr go together with us to HDB or go by himself to let us sell or withdraw our share. thanks in advance. .

Gd Evening Mr Chang, I would like seek advice for the following scenario. What are the sellers' rights with regards to the OTP in the event that I discover that my agent has not been acting in my best interests? I am living in a terrace unit, and I recently signed the OTP to sell the house, however, just 2 days after signing the OTP, i discovered that my agent was withholding some information from me as there was a few buyers willing to offer more than what I had signed for BEFORE i had even signed it. Based on my understanding, any offer before the signing of the OTP should be rightfully brought up to my attention. However, he took it upon himself to decide that these buyers were not credible and so failed to bring their offers to my attention. Is he allowed to 'filter' such offers? As this is the situation, would very much like to seek your expertise and advice, because we're talking about a potential loss of up to $50.

HI. My brother and his wife divorced a few years ago. My brother is suppose to leave their flat to his ex-wife and daughter. His ex-wife is suppose to pay back whatever he has paid to the flat and absorb all administration cost. The transfer did not happen as she said it is because the housing grant which expires last Feb. so the monthly mortgage is stil being serviced by my brother. She has now re-married and bought a new condo now . She mentioned there was a buyer for their HDB flat. and ask my brother to sign a transfer of ownership letter. Can she ask for the transfer of ownership with intent to sell. -Shouldn't she just sell the flat under joint ownership to open market? -If my brother sign the transfer of ownership, can he sell his share based on 50% of valuation price.

I understand that 20% deposit is required for purchasing a private property, the balance will have to be on bank loan. May I know, can I pay the balance using my CPF?

I am a bankrupt and am a co-owner of a 5-rm HDB flat. My wife and I have the intention of selling. If there are any profits from it, will either my wife or myself be able to keep it? Thanks!

My girlfriend and I exercised OPT with a deposit of $5000 in Jan 2008 for a HDB resale flat. That month, the HDB eligibility for a Chinese to buy an Indian flat is meet . However, the seller wishes to contra the sale flat with the new one he is buying. He therefore request the agent to login the sale transaction in the later month - Feb 2008. Unfortunately, the HDB eligibility for Chinese to buy an Indian home is full and had remained that way till today - Apr 2009. For the past one over year, we had faithfully checked the HDB website for the eligibility and appealed to HDB for help. Right now, we are weary of waiting and had decided to look for another place. We told the seller and they refuse to refund the $5000 deposit saying that we had breach the sale. We approach the agent and was told that this is between buyer and seller. I asked around and some people said that this could be collaboratio n of the agent & seller to cheat deposit. I am upset as $5000 is rather important for a young adult and all the time I had wasted waiting. Please give me advice what I can do at this point.

Dear Mr Chang My agent (buyer) brought me and my wife to view a HDB resale unit and we decided to pay 1k for the OTP. Prior to that, we tried many times unsuccessfully to get the agent to reduce his commission of 1%. We also signed his commission form. Our OTP is expiring in a few days and we are thinking of letting it laspe and buy the unit with another agent friend as our buyer agent. May i ask if our former agent can c/ome back and claim commission from us? Thanks and appreciate your good advise.

We live i Lake county ohio, and we are having trouble keeping our house. My question is, would it be legal to sell raffle to sell our house? If so, what taxes would need to be paid? Also do we need a certain license?

Hi Mr Chang We rented out our apartment to a foreigner on a 1-yr lease from June 2008.The tenant seems to have moved out without paying the March rent. We have not been able to contact him and according to the neighbours no one has been staying there for a while. Our queries are: 1.What is the best way to re-possess our apartment as there is no way to contact them. 2.Can we re-enter the apartment with our agent & security guard to check & re-possess? 3.Do we need to write a letter of termination of tenancy and how do address such a letter as we have no forwarding address of the tenant? We would be greatly oblighed for your advice as to what we could legally do. Thanking you in advance.

Hi, our new condo is going to TOP in May. We actually include my mum's in with a share of 20%. However, she has decided to remove her name. Can we change the share allocation before TOP and have her name remove? Is there a fee incur? If there is, what is the charges like? Our Bank lawyer told us it cost more then 4K including stamp fee. If we decided to make the changes, can we engage another lawyer to do it? Is there any different to make the changes before or after TOP? Appreciate your advice.

Hi, I have recently signed an option to purchase for a HDB flat and we are given our first appointment date. But now the seller refused to sell the flat and also declined to compensate or return us the deposit. I will like to know, other than taking legal actions, is there any other possible actions like seeking help from HDB to get us back the deposit? Thank you.

I have a one year rental agreement for a condo until sep 2009 and have a service contract for the air con as per the agreement. After the service the service engineer gave me a list of faults that should be repaired,i passed them on to the landlord by e-mail and got no response even though i e-mailed him another two times.Does this give me grounds to move out without being liable for the remaining rent ?

In Jan 2009 the Landlord has signed the Tenancy Agreement with the Tenant to lease a retail shop space. In the Tenancy contract it was not provided that the Tenant has to pay for Service & Conservacy charges on the premise chargeable by a third party to the Landlord as the Landlord overlooked this. Now that the Tenancy Agreements have been signed by the Tenant, and all deposits paid and renovation of the premises done, my question is whether can the landlord now ask the tenant to pay for the service and conservancy fees? In the norm, who is the actual person to pay for such Service and Conservancy fees for commercial properties? I understand in Residential properties (private and hdbs) the Landlord pays for the maintenance fee. Thank you.

My girlfriend is officially divorced recently and court order states that her ex husband has to transfer the matrimony house to her name.After going thru HDB and tried to get a bank loan all decline as she is a PR.Now the only option as she had is to get married to singaporean and a lawyer had to draft a new court order to input my name to become the co-owner and i had to pay the balance amount of loan.So is the chances of us getting the new court approved by the court is it positive on our end?

Hi Mr Chang, I buy HDB flat, the seller agent represent myself as well. Verbally (no black n white), the agent mislead me to let seller stay 1 month after completion 25/3/2009. At first, i request agent to reduce Cash portion by $1k. Then, agent suggests me to rent seller after completion. I agree. Later, I realised agent didnt get the best price for me, $1k saving is equal one month stay. The next day, he called me to sign OTP after work because many buyers want to view the house. Agent told me cash portion reduce by $1k with condition to let seller stay 1 month. I don't to agree to let seller stay for one month. He raised his voice and said he has spoken with the seller and agree already. Then, I was panic and agree. After 1st appoint 4/2/09, I told agent I do not want seller to stay for 1 month. I told him to inform seller move out on completion if not I will not pay him commission. He said no problem, the seller will move out on completion, he said I am threatening him, will sue me if i don't pay commission. He is furious so I switched off the phone. He called back and swears and curse using Hokkian vulgar words at me. The next day, he called back to confirm the seller will move upon completion. When he ask me must pay him commission.I told him will pay he does the job. After that, we didn't hear any news from him, until today, I called him to arrange for house inspection. When i ask him, the seller will move out on completion, he ignored and pushes the responsibility to the seller. He would not be responsible if the seller refuses to move out.

1)Does verbal agreement have any effect if seller refuses to move out?

2)This is an unfair treatment to me as a layman, agent is the expert in this field, how can he mislead me to let seller stay 1 month after completion?

3) There's conflict of interest here, he is representing seller and he didn't negotiate good price for buyer but I still have to pay him commission. I told him will pay him only if the seller moves out. He does not complete his duty and threaten me by sms "he can do anything to me if I don't pay him commission". I sms him "we are professional and dont go to this point and will see him at inspection tomorrow. He didnt reply. Does he violate any ethical code for point 2 and 3?

4)If the seller does not move out on completion, what can i do? Does buyer like myself have somewhere to turn to air my grievance.

We rented our place recently & our experience with the agent have left some questions in our mind & hope that you can help clarify. 1) As we do not want to pay the agent fees, we did the advertising ourselves. We were approached by an agent with tenants. She claims that we have to pay her the agent fees because we do not have an agent to represent us - she also claim that this is the industrial practice. I find this practice disturbing because a) She will collect the fees from both the tenant & us the landlord. b) If there is a dispute with the tenant in the future, who will she side as there is an issue of conflict of interest. Another question is that she claim that after the 1 year tenancy agreement is up, we have to pay her the standard 1/2 month rental if we want to renew with the tenant - Can't we just do the necessary paperwork without the agent & it sounds absurd to pay her again if she does nothing during this 1 year. We do not want to pursue the matter, but just want to seek clarification for the future transactions. Thanks for your help.

We have rented out our apartment to 5 person for about a month but we did three random checks cos the tenant are very suspicious. First check we found 7 double decker beds which does not belongs to us, second and third checks found additional 3 Female China Nationalty who claims to be relatives on social visit pass came for visiting. Now tenant complaining that we are harassing them and agent claims that we as owner do not have the rights to do any random check unless we make prior arrangement with tenant before we go down. My question: Is there any breach of tenancy contract if we keeps finding additional people in the house and also if the checks is made prior arrangement is it recognise under the Singapore Law that we have fulfilled the requirements of due diligence should any illegal activity be found in the premises. Thank you.

My father and my sister hold a joint tenancy for a HDB flat. My sister paid about $30k from her CPF and the rest all from my dad. All the monthly installement is been paid through my dad's CPF account. Now my father has re-married. He wanted my sister to transfer her share to his present wife But we do not agree to this agreement. Please advise if there is any way that my dad can dissolve this joint tenancy without my sister's consent? What can my sister do to secure her share?

Hi Mr. Chang, our concern is we have provided a deposit as a good faith and with the Letter of Intent for the owner of the house to see whether they will be agreeable to the things that we are asking from them..... if the owner has signed the letter of intent, but then for some important reason the tenant wants to back out from renting the house, is there a chance that the tenant can still get the money that they have given as a deposit?

When exercising the option to purchase a private property, should the cheque for the balance 4% be made payable to the buyer's lawyer or directly to the seller's lawyer as stakeholder? Thanks.

I have a tenant who is constantly late in her payment of rent. She has also failed to apply for Giro since the beginning of the lease, which I have been chasing her for months. Her lease is a 1 year contract and so far after 5 months of renting, she has advised the agent that she wants to break the lease. The reason for breaking the lease is that she has felt unlucky ever since living there, which I find absurd. She wants to vacate on the 7th January but to date, I have not received the rent for December. I have sent an email to the agent that if the tenant wishes to break the rent, I demand a compensation of half the rent of each month till the end of the contract. I'm not sure what my legal rights are, but can you please advise what your legal costs are for sending a letter of demand for me (or the proper procedures to follow) and whether I have any grounds to fight this case?

I am on disability. live in my partner home wich he owns with someone else. they have rights of survivorship. my partner would like to leave me his part of the house in case anything should happen to him. What should he do so i would not loose my benefits? Please

hi, and thanks for taking questions. i hope you can help me, i really do. last year i bought a condo (april time frame). i got the IRA property tax bill in May to pay from aug 2007 to dec 2008. if i dont pay by due date i will have to pay interest. so i consulted my lawyer and i was advice to pay the property tax first and later we are to claim back what is supposed to be paid by previous owner and developer. i got repaid for 2008 property tax from jan to april by the previous owner. i got repay property tax by the developer from aug to sept (after this date is where the developer turned the condo to the previous owner and that is why developer didnt pay for the rest of 2007). however i didnt get repay for property tax from sep to dec 2007. my lawyer sent letters to the lawyer of the previous owner since about 6 months ago. they have ignored them. just recently they have send a letter of demand to pay in 14 days but seems that this is not working since the previous owner's lawyer is saying that they have not received instructions from their client to acepted the service. also my lawyer is telling me that after the 14 days, they can take it to court but now i would have to pay extra legal services. isnt this problem supposed to be resolved by my lawyer as part of the purchase services a lawyer is supposed to do? the condition 7 of the Law Society's Condition of Sale, 1999, requires that the seller pays for all property tax prior the purchase? im hoping that my lawyer gets all the unfair property tax that i paid, repaid back to me without additional charges to me. I will really appreciate your advice , thanks

Hi I currently have a private property under the name of my Father and his sister in equal shares. This was requested by my father ( who had inherited the whole house) when my grandfather passed on as he was afraid he might sell the house on impluse. Now, we are trying to transfer my auntie's portion back to my family(which she agreed). I understand that this will incur legal fees and stamp duties. May i check how much would the legal fees come up to? The market value for the house would prob be around SGD1million. Secondly, should we wish to avoid the stamp duties, Would a will by my auntie to transfer her share back to my bro suffice? We are just worried that her portion would go to her husband should her will be not properly done. Seek your advise tks

My daughters father passed in 1999 without a will and he owned 2acres in north carolina.i receive social sercurity for my daughter and he didnt sign the birth certificate.my daughter is his only child.how do i proceed to obtain the property?

Is there a standard option to purchase form from SLA or any real estate authority that we can use if we engage the seller directly to purchase a private residential property ? or we have to source for a lawyer before to we pay option fee to seller ?

Hi, I have just completed the sale of a HDB flat and allowed the owner to stay one month out of good-will. But when I am taking over the flat one month later, the owner requested for a few weeks and I too have to pay the rent for the place I'm staying. If I wish to take legal proceedings what are the charges and steps I can take in this situation?

Dear Sir, Two month ago I rent out my 5 Rm hdb flat to someone through property agent, both we sign the one year rental contract monthly rental amount is $1800 with one deposit. During that time she pays me one month money $1800 instead of $3600 after signing the contract. Due to I have to pay my agent commission fee $800 the fore I only took $ 800 without another amount of 1800.Because I agree to it and what she said that she will pay me when she move in. But she did not move in one month later, can I ask her to pay up the rest of amount $ 1800, what should I do or can I go to small claims count to get the money back. Thank you.

Hi Mr Chang, In normal practice, when the purchaser paid up the 4% to exercise the option, this money is kept with the Vendor's lawyer who acts as the stakeholder until the final transaction. The questions I want to ask are as follows: 1) What are the risks involved if the Purchaser allows the 4% to be released to the Vendor immediately upon the exercise of the option? 2) On what circunstances would the Purchaser end up losing the 4% option money when it is released to the Vendor upon exercising of the option? 3) Is there any safeguard available if the Purchaser is required to release the option money to the Vendor unpon exercising of the option, assuming that this is one of the agreements between the Purchase & Vendor for the property transaction? Thank you for your advice.

My father & brother are deceased and own property together- how do I sell it?