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WE ARE US citizens and we relocated to Singapore on Jan 5.

Both of us work for multinational firms and were fortunate to relocate together, thus ensuring the family stays together.

The intent was to gain international work experience, contribute to the Singapore economy and get the family exposed to the international vibrant culture that this country offers.

Last year, our companies decided to relocate us to Singapore from the US. In October 2006, we had come to Singapore on a pre-relocation visit.

We worked with a real estate agent from DTZ Debenham Tie Leung and selected a landed terraced home property in the Woodlands area to rent as our new home.

We paid two months’ advance rent in October 2006, signed a legally binding Tenancy Agreement and acquired the Certificate of Stamp Duty. Subsequent to that, we literally uprooted ourselves and our two children from the US and moved to Singapore in January.

We shipped a container load of furniture and belongings from the US into Singapore and onto the property.

We also invested heavily in the repair, restoration and renovation of the property. We paid a month’s advance rent and moved in on Jan 23. Everything looked very promising as we embarked on settling down in Singapore.

On or about March 3, we received a letter from a law firm representing our property owners’ bank, giving notice to deliver up vacant possession of the property within one month, failing which it appeared that there would be a court eviction order.

We were shocked and naturally, tried to contact the lawyer to find out what was happening. We attempted a number of times but the lawyer’s assistant expressed that the lawyer was not in a position to deal with us (which was strange because he sent us an eviction notice). It was clear to us that the owners had defaulted on their mortgage payment instalments.

After various failed attempts at trying to communicate with the lawyer, we tried to contact the bank officer in charge.

Again, after a few attempts, we finally sought the help of the owner to put us in touch with one officer of the Collection Department.

He appeared to have understood our plight. We were foreigners in Singapore. We have relocated our entire living to Singapore. We have poured in a huge sum of money into this property.

In front of the officer and the owner, we put forward the suggestion that the bank could sell the property with the tenancy. Alternatively, we informed him that we were able and willing to pay the mortgage instalments directly to the bank (or the rent - whichever is higher) for as long as I was the tenant on the property.

It appears that OCBC would not honour the tenancy agreement and will proceed with the actions to repossess the property and evict our entire family in due course.

The reason we were given is that the owners had not taken the consent of the bank to rent out the property and as such the tenancy agreement would not be honoured.

It also appears that the real estate agent should have checked this fact out and ensured that the owner had permission from the bank OCBC to rent it out. Had this ‘permission’ been obtained and the owner declared bankruptcy, then the bank would proceed to take over the terms of the tenancy agreement.

This has been a very difficult experience for our family. We did not expect to move in and out of a rental property within three months.

In our humble view, there is no loss to the bank should the property be sold with the tenancy or, should the monthly mortgage instalment payments be met and sale of the property deferred (until the end of the tenancy agreement) in a rising market.

But the bank has chosen to evict our family, which in our view, is not only unnecessary, but unduly harsh and inflexible.

We are writing this letter to make others aware of this situation and are also hoping that some senior official at OCBC reads the article and takes some interest to help us out.

For confidentiality reasons no individual names have been mentioned. It is not our intention to harm anyone, just to state the facts and hope that justice prevails.

Rashmi Mathur

Source : Straits Times - 17 May 2007