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Q My daughter and I bought a private apartment with our savings and Central Provident Fund (CPF) monies.

I’m estranged from my husband. He sold our matrimonial home, most of which I paid for, to settle his gambling debts.

I want to make a will that excludes him completely.

Please tell me how I can prevent him from getting a share of my apartment or other personal assets.

A In your case, it is imperative you make a will. Otherwise, your assets would be distributed in accordance with the Intestate Succession Act. Your legal spouse would get half of your assets and your children would share the other half.

One exception would be properties held by you and another person in joint tenancy. If the apartment is held by you and your daughter as joint tenants, the survivor would get the entire property; intestacy rules would not apply.

Under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act, any dependant of a deceased person may apply to court to challenge a will if no reasonable provision was made for him or her. If the court believes the terms of the will do not make reasonable provision for his or her maintenance, it may order that such provision be made out of the deceased’s estate.

The court will consider the applicant’s conduct and financial standing, and whether reasonable provision was made for him or her when the deceased was alive.

Based on the facts given by you, I do not think your husband would have a strong case for challenging your will.

A will protects assets other than the monies in your CPF account. For those, you need to nominate a beneficiary by sending a nomination form to the CPF Board.

You should also check your insurance policies. If you named your husband as a beneficiary, a statutory trust has been set up and any payout would go to him.

Finally, you can get a Deed of Separation so your current status would be legally reflected. Have a lawyer advise you regarding the implications.

(Ang Kim Lan Goodwins Law Corporation)

Advice provided is not meant as a substitute for comprehensive professional advice.

Source : Sunday Times - 10 Aug 2008

After they signed an agreement to rent a five-room Housing Board flat, the landlord refused to let them move in.

The dispute then took a bizarre turn - the landlord died.

This has left the four students from China poorer by $3,000, despite having a Small Claims Tribunal ruling in their favour.

Miss Liu Yu, 21, and three friends - two men, both 21, and a woman, 26 - are studying business-related courses in private schools here.

In March, a property agent showed them a flat in Serangoon.

Miss Liu said they liked it, and paid the landlord $2,000 as a one-month deposit and the agent $1,000 in commission.

They checked the landlord’s proof of ownership before signing, she said.

The landlord, a divorcee in her late 30s living in the flat with her daughters, promised to move out before 1 Apr, the tenants’ move-in date.

On 1 Apr, the students arrived with their belongings, but nobody answered the door, Miss Liu said.

FLAT NO LONGER AVAILABLE

When they called the landlord’s handphone, she said she was in hospital, and that she no longer wanted to rent out the flat.

Miss Liu said that she ignored their demands for the return of their deposit. They also failed to get back the $1,000 commission from the property agent, she claimed.

Friends advised them to go to the Small Claims Tribunal.

On 16 Apr, the tenants attended the tribunal hearing, but the landlord did not turn up. What they didn’t know was that she had died by then.

The tribunal awarded them $4,000, as the contract had a clause specifying twomonths’ rental as compensation in the event of a breach of agreement.

When they tried to claim the money, a woman claiming to be the landlord’s younger sister told them over the phone that her sister had died.

‘We didn’t know whether or not to believe her,’ Miss Liu said.

A police spokesman told The New Paper that they found a dead woman in the flat on 4 Apr, after receiving a 999 call. They have classified it as an unnatural death.

When told of this, Miss Liu said: ‘If that is the case, then it’s really tragic. I guess we can just count ourselves unlucky.’

Lawyer Amolat Singh said that, under the law, debts do not go away with the debtor’s death.

Creditors can sue the estate of the deceased debtor to enforce repayment ofdebts.

Miss Liu said a lawyer told her it could cost them as much as $1,000 to recover themoney.

She and her friends are still mulling over what to do next.

Source : New Paper - 2 Aug 2008

A LAWYER convicted of fraud has now been barred from practising.

Mr Tan Sok Ling, 41, was the first lawyer to be struck off the rolls this year.

He did not appear before the Court of Three Judges yesterday to contest the application by the Law Society to dismiss him from the profession.

Last November, Mr Tan, a lawyer since 1993, was sentenced to jail for 11 months for forgery and giving false information.

In March 2006, he had inflated the stamp duty payable for a Thomson Park house that his client bought by $5,400.

And in July 2003, Mr Tan lied to a police officer that he lived in Bukit Timah when he actually lived in Tanah Merah in order to secure a spot in a prestigious all-girls school in Bukit Timah for his daughter.

He is believed to be out of jail as a notice to attend court for yesterday’s hearing was personally served on him at his home on July 26.

Before his conviction, he had also been suspended from practising by the Law Society for a year in March last year for not keeping proper accounts as the sole proprietor of the now-defunct Tan S.L. Partners.

Following his conviction, the Law Society began proceedings to remove him from the Bar as his offences involved fraud and dishonesty - flaws which the legal profession does not accept.

The hearing yesterday took all of 10 minutes.

Another lawyer Low Yong Sen also faced the Court of Three Judges yesterday for allegedly overcharging a married couple for expenses incurred in a property deal.

He had allegedly charged his clients three times more than what was deemed by a disciplinary committee as fair when he billed his client $4,300 in expenses.

Mr Low, who represented himself, told the three judges that he was mainly a family lawyer who rarely did conveyancing deals.

The property transactions he handled mainly involved HDB flats and this was his case which involved a private property, he said.

Mr Low, a lawyer for 15 years, said he had engaged a legal secretary to help him with the work and had billed his clients that much based on that secretary’s claims.

He did not stand to benefit by overcharging the couple, Mr Low told the court.

His case was adjourned to a later date as the judges asked for a point of law in his case to be clarified.

Last year, two lawyers were disbarred - fugitive David Rasif, who has fled the country after allegedly pocketing more than $11 million of his clients’ money, and Mr Edwin Tay, who did not keep any books of acounts of his clients for the entire year of 2004 for the law firm he then owned.

Source : Straits Times - 31 Jul 2008

OWNER OF HOME TO PAY $150,000 FOR REPAIRS
Land Authority not responsible as eroded slope is private land

IT has been seven long months since these million-dollar semi-detached houses in Siglap have been void of occupants.

For the two homeowners, it has been one piece of bad news after another.

First, a heavy thunderstorm last December unleashed a mudslide of rubble, sand and rocks which broke through a wall and almost bulldozed through their homes.

Then they were ordered to vacate immediately, as the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) declared the two houses to be structurally unsafe.

The semi-detached houses, which are back-to-back and share a common wall, are at Jalan Tanah Puteh, off Siglap.

They are located next to a disused cemetery on state land, and the top of the slope is as high as the roof of the houses before it drops steeply down.

Ordinarily, if the mudslide had originated from state land, the homeowners may have been able to claim compensation from the authorities.

But their luck ran out one more time, because the erosion was from their private land, which extended about two metres from the slope.

Construction costs of reinforcing the slope and repairs to the houses would cost at least $150,000 for each property, one homeowner, Mr S W Ong, estimated. These include building a retaining wall as well as external and internal repairs.

Mr Ong, 77, said it is unlikely his insurance policy will cover mudslides.

He is now getting quotations for the repairs.

The retiree said in Mandarin: ‘I don’t know how much it will cost exactly, but definitely, it won’t be a small sum of money. What to do? If I don’t repair, no one can live here.’

For him, the mudslide also meant a loss of rental income since he has been renting his place out for the last six years for under $2,000 a month.

SHAKEN BY SLIDE

He said his tenant was resting at home at the time of the mudslide last December when the incident occurred around 5-6pm. The tenant called him after that.

‘He was sleeping when he said he heard a loud sound,’ Mr Ong said.

‘He sounded quite shaken on the phone. But the most important thing was that he was safe and nothing happened to him.’

The tenant had to move away after that.

Mr Ong bought his 2,000-odd sq ft home at No. 36 for about $1.8 million some 10 years ago. It is probably worth around the same value now, he said. Mr Ong said that he knew a part of the slope belonged to him, and the other part was state land.

The part that belonged to him was not fenced in, and he said he does not know how far his land extended until the authorities told him recently.

When he bought the place 10 years ago, the slope was already there. He does not know why the developer did not fully utilise the private land.

The other homeowner from No10 declined to be interviewed.

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) confirmed that the mudslide involved a private slope, which is owned by the two homeowners.

But it stepped in to help with the slope rectification works since the slope was close to state land.

SLA had first activated its contractor to cover the exposed slope with canvas to divert rainfall, so as to prevent any further mudslide.

Then, workers propped up the affected houses to minimise any structural risks and further slope movement.

SLA said that it is studying further rectification methods with its professional engineer (PE).

The homeowners are also bound by the Building Control Act to appoint a PE to do reinstatement works to the collapsed part to protect surrounding properties from further damages.

An SLA spokesman said: ‘Although the mudslide or failed rubble wall is within private land, the owners had difficulty engaging a competent PE to look into the repair works and make an independent assessment, until very recently.

‘This could have caused some initial delay in the repair works to be carried out on the private land.’

CUTTING PART OF SLOPE

Both the homeowners and SLA’s PEs have recommended that cutting part of the slope may be the best option for now to achieve slope stability.

SLA said it is working with the owners and consulting the relevant agencies to use the safest measure to cut the slope without affecting the cemetery grounds.

A portion of the state land, which is on higher ground, may have to be cut and rectification works done so as to stabilise the slope.

Although there is no danger right now posed to the two properties and their surroundings, SLA understands that the relevant authorities, on the side of caution, is not allowing occupation until the repair and rectification works are completed.
 
Source : New Paper - 28 Jul 2008

Q I am divorced and intend to write my own will. Am I required to state that I am a divorcee, and do I also need to indicate my former husband’s name and the date of the divorce? Does my former husband have any rights to my estate?

A When you make a will, you are free to dispose of your property in any manner that you wish. Only Muslims are required to distribute assets in a certain way, according to the Administration of Muslim Law Act. In fact, the freedom to distribute your estate as you wish is often cited as a strong reason for making a will.

Therefore, your marital status has no effect whatsoever on how you make out your will. As such, your former husband has no right to share in your estate.

Amolat Singh
Lawyer
Amolat & Partners

Advice provided in this column is not meant as a substitute for comprehensive professional advice.
 
Source : Sunday Times - 27 Jul 2008