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Many tenants sometimes unwarily get themselves into a hot soup when entering into a tenancy with an unlawful landlord. Grangeford Apartments is probably one of the largest forced tenant eviction exercise enforced by authorities.
The following was an online ad taken off one of the prominent property websites:
” Limited individual rooms (no owner), master rooms with attached bath, studio, 2 and 3 bedroom units avail. Prices start from $900 only! Newly refurbished and tastefully done up. Fully furnished with brand new 32″ LCD TV, queensized bed, fridge, washer. Locaterd in prestigious prime District 9, with panoramic unblocked city/greenery view, broadband access. 10 mins walk to Orchard MRT, shopping belt. Short term lease also avail.” – advertised by an agent.
However such cases where unwitting tenants fall prey to conman/women who claim to be the property’s owner, paying to the “landlord” deposit and advance rental, only to find out eventually or at a later stage that they have been cheated.
URA is quite lenient this round, and is monitoring the situation with the owner of Grangeford apartments – Cove Development Pte Ltd. Ideal Accommodation the main tenant at Grangeford apartments had without authorization from authorities to subdivide the original 141 units into 600 units and had individually leased to individual subtenants. With appeals from Ideal Accomodation, URA has extended the grace period for removal of all partitions to 27 July 2009.
However it is uncertain right now the plight of tenants at Grangeford Apartments at this moment. If we have updates on this issue, we’ll post it up on our website.
A point of advice for all tenants is to be aware of legal intricacies involved in renting of property.
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What kind of punishment is the stand norm for offenders like Ideal? Care to elaborate?
HI Leonard, I will not speculate what the government authorities will do to Ideal Accommodation.
A landlord-tenant relationship gone sour, actually in Ideal’s case it is a main tenant-sub tenant relationship and tenant-landlord relationship gone sour. As in most cases, tenants pretty much bear the short end of the deal. Most tenants only see the positive picture of a new life, new home when they move into a rented property. Normally within a month or two, problems start to creep in. Hence, tenants have to be aware of such things. Hence it is important for tenants to appoint a registered agent to act on their behalf – a professional registered agent has a fiduciary duty to protect his or her client’s interest.
Back to Ideal – in a soured relationship, settlement is normally done out of court. Due to expenses, civil suits between landlord and tenant or main tenant and sub tenants are rare. As in most contractual relationships, it is based on the interpretation of the contract. These agreements may be written in legal jargon, which many tenants do not bother to read. This lies the danger for most tenants who do not think ahead.
It is very likely that the tenants at Grangeford Apartments are getting short changed, as they now might not be able to get back their security deposit.
With some investigative journalism, The Straits Times have found that Ideal Accommodation has illegally partitioned more than one condo – for the purpose of subletting out these small partitioned units. The other that was also an en-bloc sale condo – Holland Crest. Ideal Accommodation leased the units here to expatriates, students and long-term tourists, and on average they pay about $1,800 per partitioned unit per month.
Another at Dalvey Court, off Stevens Road, a walk-up apartment complex which had nine units originally, each apartment has been partitioned into three or four units. The studio unit – with a master bedroom and balcony – was going for $1,300.
Some partitioned units were also found at Moonstone Apartments near Serangoon Road, No. 8 Kim Keat Road and No. 144 Race Course Road.
We will keep all updated on this situation.
Great text and nice blog.
Thanks very much. And hope you keep reading and syndicating us as well.