... sneaky Compensation/Contribution Agreement paying off 1 owner $200k to reach the 80% was judged BAD FAITH - and the sale was thrown out .
The Contribution Agreement was in fact two agreements - one agreement between the majority owners and the Marketing agent and the other agreement between the Marketing agent and the lucky owner. The CSC refused to disclose either agreement to the minority.
Interesting reading - a little wooly perhaps, but interesting all the same.
You can find it for free at the Supreme Court website.. under Recent Judgements
09 April 2013
No-go for Harbour View Gardens sale
A PROPOSED $33 million collective sale of Harbour View Gardens in Pasir Panjang Road to Roxy-Pacific Holdings has fallen through.
A High Court appeal by the consenting owners at the project was dismissed yesterday.
The Court of Appeal upheld a ruling by High Court Justice Belinda Ang in April.
She had refused to allow the sale as the Harbour View Gardens collective sales committee "had not acted in good faith" while its marketing agent's conduct was "commercially unacceptable".
The exact reasons for the decision are unknown as the written judgement has not been released yet.
The appeal was mounted by the majority owners, represented by Drew & Napier senior counsel Hri Kumar, who could not be reached for comment.
The Straits Times understands that the appeal was heard yesterday morning and dismissed before noon.
Rodyk & Davidson real estate lawyer Lee Liat Yeang, who was not involved in the en bloc sale or court case, said yesterday that the dismissal of the appeal "is seen as a wet blanket on an already tepid collective sales market".
The freehold development, consisting of 14 three-storey walk-up apartments, was sold to RH West Coast in July last year for $33 million, subject to clearance for the sale. The marketing agent was Colliers International (Singapore).
RH West Coast is a unit of property developer Roxy-Pacific Holdings, which declined to comment yesterday, citing a pending Singapore Exchange announcement on the matter.
The Harbour View Gardens court dispute centred on whether its en bloc sale could go through.
One central issue was a $200,000 inducement that the collective sales committee and Colliers had offered to couple Han Min Juan and Jee Ming Tu to get them to agree to sell their flat.
Mr Han was a member of the committee. Their consent enabled it to reach the requisite 80 per cent majority threshold. However, a few minority owners objected to the sale, saying that the inducement was not paid in good faith.
They also said that the committee had not acted "even-handedly" as the incentive was offered to only one opposing minority owner and not to others.
August 16, 2013
