Protecting yourself from property disputes

The same reports say that there have been at least 130 such cases in the past decade alone. So what can you do then to protect yourself in a similar situation? Today, I'm asking Lim Fung Ping, he's director and head of family and private wealth Practice group at Yuan Law LLC. Hi Pin, welcome to the show. Thank you, Andrew. I'm happy to be here. Now, you must have seen many cases of families fighting over property or assets in your career. What's the one that stood

out to you the most so far? What's trending now, what's unfortunate, as you say is instances where Infighting in a family over property, how a property should be sold. One very common and increasing trend we have is what is called forced sale kind of applications in court. So the scenarios looks like this, A and B are co-owner of a property, could be a condo, could be an HDB landed, and A wants out and B wants to stay. So it could be parent and child, or it could be two siblings.

So in the past 10 years, I've done close to 10 cases already, so it could be like 1 a year. So that's a common scenario and when a party wants to move on, the party that wants to move on then apply to the High Court, yeah. OK. Is this worrying to you? Are you concerned? It is and I think one of the concerning points is that how did the family land up in this kind of situation in my convincing practice, which means when people buy and sell property. I, as a lawyer, try to help them be mindful

about long-term arrangements, right? So how you buy property matters, but we lawyers call the manner of holding, whether it's joint tenancy or tenants in common, can affect the nature of the holding can affect the parties for the long term. And holding is basically legally for ownership. That's right. We have two people and you have divergent views that that complicates things. So for example, HDB.

Some people think, oh, very convenient, uh, two people who are a bit, uh, I won't say elderly but past middle age, and then when they buy HDB flat, then they conveniently ask their single child to join them, many cases like that, I have yeah, and the single child, adult child says, la, we are Asian, right, so we help our parents lah, you know, we can get the loan, that kind of thing, and then.

Very commonly that single person finds someone special and then they want to apply for the BTO, then there's a situation here and that's very unfortunate because the child has every right to remove his name so that he's eligible for his BTO right? and that's one very common scenario. So the family there thought, oh, it's convenient for financing to get the adult child in, but they didn't think, hey,

down the road. So along familial arrangements like this is very common for refinancing, but another situation of course is writing of wills. I think it's something that we've discussed here on the Money Talks podcast also how Singaporeans are unaware of the importance of having a will written out because it really does help mitigate some of these issues that you're talking about right now. Do you think that more work needs to be done to Raise the awareness and the importance of writing a will.

I've written 3 books. My first book was about the LPA, my second one was about probate, and my 3rd 1 is about family matters. In all my prefaces on my books, I say that every Singaporean has a very oversimplified view of things. I like to put it that way and in in one of my prefaces, I also say it's maybe partly because we are a new society. To put it politely, sometimes we have this immigrant mentality.

If you look at American culture, even like New York City, if you look at the Greeks and Italians and even the Chinese, they are very frugal. What's the hallmark of immigrant mentality? Frugality, so why spend more money. So I, I believe that as professionals or as concerned stakeholders in society, whether it's government or self-help groups, we need to understand where our population is at. If people have this immigrant mentality, then

they don't see the value of it. Everything is simple and if you look at a lot of ads, a lot of requests that My team gets, he said, oh, I want to do a simple will. Have you ever asked a doctor, I want a simple operation. No, you let the doctor decide whether this operation is simple or not, right? So yeah, it's not really up to you. Even now with patients and doctors, oh, doc, I want antibiotics. Many of my doctor friends go, who made you the doctor? So that's

why I come back to your point. Creating awareness and understanding is very important and in my area of work, the clients that I really appreciate. And not the high net worth ones alone, but it happens to be that not all, but a lot of good family, I call it good families, they understand the value of doing a comprehensive will, or a simple will. So let's take the scenario of the average Singaporean, 80% of us live in HDB flats. Now, somebody In their 50s, says, oh, I want to finally do

my will, I want do a simple will. I just want to give my HDB flat to my two children, 2 is enough. So give my two children bolela. How can it be? Why do I need to pay a

lawyer $600 for that or whatever $100? But they are not aware of the consequences and it gets even more complicated with private property because let's say father wants to give to Two children again, and then the two children already have their own HDB flats, so they can't inherit this private property depending on the scenarios and then let's say they Inherit it nevertheless, and then, but maybe one wants to say maybe even without HDB flats, they want to inherit it,

maybe it's a bungalow, so one has to buy the other one out that incurs PSD, potentially ABSD, all these taxes, there was no planning. So I have even moneyed families that the grandfather leaves at $8 million.10 million dollars, $150 million property, and it's given to 16 beneficiaries. Yeah, even grandchildren have 116 share in the. It's a minefield. So there was not enough planning and in terms of wills also, I've seen wills that were made 35 years ago, the postal code is 2 digits.

So I tell people now in terms of wills, you should treat it like you're iOS or your app, if you don't update it, I can't use my SingPass. So your will is the same because life changes life stages and things like that. And not just your life, but I think the environment around you changes as well. Laws change, regulations change, tax changes

as well, yeah. I'm curious about that case where you have parents leaving their child in the will or I'll just split it with the 2 children or 16 beneficiaries, what have you. So what would your advice be then in those scenarios, let's say you catch it before the owner of the property dies. What would your advice be then? It's the same in anything in life. What's the most important thing to you? What's the objective? You go to a car showroom, right? What do you

need a car for? What's your budget? Are you a car enthusiast or not? Do you want to just go and service the car once a year, that type of, or what? So same if you will. So I understand what you're saying. A lot of ladies come to me because I think ladies are more, they want to do housekeeping and I always tell men, you're very blessed if you have a wife that wants to drag you down to the law

office to get advice or do up your will. And yeah, so how I help the clients actually what's most important to you. Yeah, and it's quite normal for a person to without advice, I just want to be fair, Asian, right? My parents are like that. I just want to be fair. Yeah, yeah. And another question I ask them is. What's most important to you besides being fair? There are certain things that I will ask them, for example, and there was a grandfather, 68-year-old grandfather who had 5 very

successful children. I think he had one profession, each one lawyer, one doctor, one banker, everything, yeah, he had a full house and he had 7 grandchildren, and he in particular wanted to be fair to his children and his grandchildren. I said, I was a much younger lawyer then, so I said, uncle, wow, you're really blessed. I said, do your children really need money? They said, no lah, they are doing so well. I said, then what is, what you really want to do with

your legacy? I said, oh, actually I want to show my grandchildren love and show them what's the importance of having a good education. Right, and so it, long story short, he turned his whole world into creating an educational trust for his 7 grandchildren. Yeah, that's nice. What about the other side of the negotiating table or the beneficiaries, right? Have you come into instances where even if the beneficiaries are well off, they're. They still believe, no, I have a right to this

piece of property. It's about my right to possession. So how do you handle that? These days, these kind of scenarios also are coming around and some parents take the view of Warren Buffett and the like. I've really given you stuff. I'm not gonna give my kids anything because why I asked you this question is because in my mind, and I'm going to put it quite crudely as well, you don't have to be poor to want to fight for

a piece of what you think you deserve. We just resolve this case, they were fighting over $30,000 that's it, they fought for one year and they're not rich and we were telling them. Why are you fighting? Can we help you settle this principle is principle, and then I said, OK, but principles are costly and but some people, you have to respect

their decision. Yeah, but coming back to that, yeah, so at the end of the day when the executor says, I, I want to just give to charity and nothing to my children. Uh, in Singapore, it's very hard to challenge, right? In Australia, in other jurisdictions, there are possible means to to do it, right? Singapore is very hard for a beneficiary to challenge and say, oh, I want a piece of the action because I'm entitled

to it. In Singapore, there's only a law that says that if you are a dependent, so if you're handicapped or you're disabled, and and also that only entitles you to maintenance, maintenance to do like to survive, not like a share of the estate. I'm seeing more. More of these actually you're right. They feel that they've done enough for their kids or even their grandkids and that's it. Just out of curiosity, what proportion of cases

involve private property versus HDB flat? Anecdotally, I would just say it's in my 50/50. It is pretty split down the middle. OK, I think it's 50/50, but bearing in mind that 80% of us live in HDB flats, yeah. But anecdotally is fifty-fifty. Let's go into the process now, the bit of the technical aspect of a property dispute. How are they first raised? How do they first come to you and then what are the key steps you

would take once that case lands on your desk. So typically how things go in Singapore, mostly people will make inquiries in the law firm. They will write in an email and then say this is the problem, right? I want out or whatever it is, I want to share.

So whatever the inquiry is, the proper thing to do is have a meet up and have a discussion and discuss with the client the objectives and also what I would do is propose certain options and since you're asking what are the steps, one of the first options is not going to court. Yes, I get that sense. One of the first options is actually to me is to advise the client of their rights. Because some people come with misconceptions, misconceptions of what they're

entitled to. So some people need a reality check, not in Singapore. You watch too much Judge Judy, yes, yeah. So the first step is always to get advisory and assessment and then your legal advisor can just tell you this is the score, this is where you stand, and then for me, I would say, oh, you have a claim or you have a case, but it is at the moment, not. Ready, it's not strong enough. So first thing assessment, giving

the kinds of options. One of the options could be to strengthen their case, gather more evidence, but finally you reach a stage where again it's not go to court, it's to write a letter to the other side and say, make a proposal, say, look, this is the situation, this is my stand. I think this is a fair proposal. I pay you this or you pay me this. And we do this or what, this is how we do things. So it's essentially mediation up to a degree.

So at what point then does it end up in court? OK, it's not quite mediation, what we call it is negotiation. So you write a proposal letter and wait for the other side to respond. Most lawyers will actually go through this process of negotiation by letter, at least one round to. When that doesn't work, and then we have to see, you mentioned mediation in family justice court and in the state courts, there are court mediations, which is free, which

is very good. That means the court doesn't charge for it, but that's because I think our courts really believe in mediation and since I've been in practice for 28 years, there's always been this and it's been going from strength to strength. So mediation, I'm a firm believer in it. Because I think mediation is also a way for the mediator to give parties a reality check because everyone thinks their case is bound to win. Is that the ultimatum

before it goes to court that mediation? Well, yes, if there's a breakthrough in mediation. Like mediation, is it one day and that's it, but court mediation normally is just not one day. If there's hope, there can be a second round and that's where the court mediator, normally a district judge will facilitate the parties coming to a middle ground, but private mediation usually just usually it's just one off. They try to finish. If it starts at 9 they'll try to finish by

9 p.m. and then that's it, yeah. So at what point does it go to court when fails? What kind of cost are we looking at here from start to end of that entire process that you talked about here and which one is going to be the most expensive part of the process? The initial part of writing letters is can give us a range, it will be anything from 20 to $5000 just to start negotiating, but when you pass that. When you go to court, it starts at 8 because

the 4 year application goes to the high court. Yeah, so that's different as well. And it really depends. It can range anything from 8 to 10, 12K and go all the way to 40, 50k and this is in the High Court. Yeah, so that is the reason why when you usually go to the High Court, it's usually about. A condo or a landed piece of property because the

stakes are higher, it's a higher ticket item, right? So if it's in the arena of divorce in the family justice court, then that's where another very big area happens as well when I get inquiries about children. And I meet the father or the mother for the first time, we talk about children, who are going to get the children. But the next big thing, in fact, some people talk about the, yeah, because, to be fair, sometimes it's not an issue that the kids are going

to go with the mom anyway. So now they worry about the HDB flat or their condo or their private property and then there again in even the family justice court, you're trying to deal with it. It's one. the big factors in the divorce proceedings. Just going back to the portion of the question, do the lawyers' fees come up to a lot in these cases as well in terms of what we will have to be prepared

to pay? It can be if both lawyers are trying to be therapeutic collaborative, and both lawyers want to keep on negotiating, but one of their clients, I want to fight. You can't do anything, lawyer has to say. I have to respect the client's view and advance his case. So some people just don't lend themselves to mediation. It says fight means fight. So it's very yeah, even against the lawyer's advice. They just said no, I just, or another way some people are interesting, they say, I just

want to let the judge decide. Yeah, for some people, I think it's just I don't want to decide, so I let the judge decide. So it's just like you have a person says, I don't want to negotiate with you. I don't want to consider your proposal. I just want to present, both of us present everything to the judge and let the judge decide.

So in a way they're not making a decision. So sometimes the mediation is difficult and I see my counterpart lawyer having a challenge because His client or her client doesn't want to decide, and he turns to her, you decide for me, I can't decide for you. I can't decide for you. Of course, it's wonderful if two people can compromise and just say, OK, and that can be done very early on at negotiation

stage of two letters. Say the dispute involves family members who don't have an alternative home or can't put their share of the bill. What options are available to them, what kind of support can they get and also on the other side of the aisle, what will the suing party for the lack of a better term, need to prepare for? Let's take

the HDB situation, it's a divorce context but same. The owner was the gentleman and the lady was not Singaporean, they were married, but She's just a registered occupier, but after the divorce, HDB ruling is that she can't stay there anymore, she cannot be the registered occupant doesn't really have in that sense. OK. So that is of course a very weak position for the party that is not a co-owner, so she has to move out. But if she's Singaporean citizen or PR but definitely citizen.

I know the HDB has many schemes like rental flats and things like that. I understand what you're saying because some people can be very transactional and says, I want you out, even though you may have a right to be there. So that's where if the person has a right and they came to see me, they said, look,

let's negotiate. If you can't upkeep the place and things like that, then, then you need to Come to some compromise if maybe if it's a private property, sell and then buy a two-room flat or something, there must be some practical solution, but I think what we are getting at is that people don't sit down and talk. It's a really tricky conversation to have, but one that I was really glad to have had with you. So thanks very much for sitting in this chair. Thank you for having me.

For being on the Money Talks podcast. Listeners, we hope this episode provides the steps to make sure that you and your loved one are protected from future disputes. Hopefully none at all. As they say, sharing is caring, so if you know anyone who might benefit from this episode, please send it their way. Share feedback with us. as well. Money Talks is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music and Me Listen as well. You can leave us a rating there as well. Thank you to the team.

Tiffany Ang, Junaini Johari, Joanne Chan, Hanida Amin, Sae Wind, Ili Manso, Tan Wen Lin. I'm Andrea Heng, and this has been CNA's Money Talks podcast. Thank you very much for listening.