Category Archives: En-bloc / Collective Sales

Private estates badly kept? Says who?

Posted on 15 Aug 2009 | Comments Off on Private estates badly kept? Says who?

I REFER to Monday’s report, ‘En bloc debate, HK style’, which mentions, inter alia, that Singapore is two-thirds the size of Hong Kong. This means the Republic has a smaller buffer of land and cannot afford to leave decaying buildings untouched for long.

Older Singaporeans remember with dismay the 1960 and 1970s when the Government had a policy of ‘Stop at two’ and made it clear that parents who ignored the campaign to limit family size to just two children would have to pay the price financially.

The principal reason for this unpopular policy was Singapore’s land size. If I recall, the optimum population that could be comfortably accommodated was about three million.

However, that policy has proven over the years that Nature knows best and Singaporeans began to be concerned about the declining rate of Continue reading →

Comments Off on Private estates badly kept? Says who?

Posted in En-bloc / Collective Sales

Tagged , ,

Still waiting for changes to en bloc rules

Posted on 15 Aug 2009 | Comments Off on Still waiting for changes to en bloc rules

MANY unit owners or subsidiary proprietors (SPs) who live in private estates are unlikely to be happy at the prospect of ‘the Republic’s next en bloc wave’ envisaged in Monday’s report, ‘En bloc debate, HK style’.

The report compared legislation in Singapore and Hong Kong. Those in Singapore who are likely to be affected cannot but feel that Hong Kong adopts a more empathetic approach to the concept that an individual’s home is his castle, with the right to undisturbed residence.

Sadly, where condominiums in Singapore are concerned, such comfort is replaced with the insecurity that a group of self-interested SPs can, and often do, band together in an attempt to sell the estate collectively – the main carrot dangled almost always being the prospect of a higher-than-market price for their unit.

As I recall, new rules governinig collective property sales were introduced from October 2007. After barely a few months, it was reported that the Continue reading →

Comments Off on Still waiting for changes to en bloc rules

Posted in En-bloc / Collective Sales

Tagged ,