Prime News on Hope Group

This is something we don't see often - when a group of self-volunteered home owners get together to create a website with information to help other owners who are being subjected to the enbloc blight. "Self-volunteer? Sure, like the sales committee!" I hear some cry, but there's a big difference - sales committee 'volunteers' have a big FINANCIAL gain out at the end of their effort, assuming the sale succeeds. Hope volunteers have no such gain except the satisfaction that they have helped to educate the public, and helped owners to protect their basic, fundamental, right to a home. And THAT, my friends, is what volunteerism should be about. Don't see much of that around nowadays, when others are put before self.

This was printed in the Straits Times the day after National Day. I'm reprinting the whole thing, and I have a wee comment at the end, in response to the last person interviewed in the piece.


Hope for owners fighting en bloc; A website with information on the laws and processes in collective sales is aimed at helping minority owners
Straits Times Prime News 11 August 2008
By Lim Wei Chean & Arlina Arshad

THE name of the website - www.hope4stayers.com - says it all. It is a forum for, and set up by, people who are worried about losing their homes in a collective sale.

Its opening words are a call to arms.

'We need to share our experiences to get us through this nightmare,' it reads.

'We hope that our daily lives can be free from the constant worries of losing our homes to those who see home as a mere financial tool for wealth.'

Cosmetics distributor Tan Keng Ann started the site when his neighbours wanted their condominium along Toh Tuck Road sold en bloc last year.

The 60-year-old said there had been a dearth of information online about collective sales.

'We want this to be an educational site, for people to learn more about en bloc sales.'

And so the Hope website was born. (It is an acronym for Home Owners' Protecting Entitlements.)

The site started in February with about five or six members from estates on the chopping block. Today, it has a core group of 25 flat owners scattered in 15 estates that are going through the sale process, some for the second time.

They include Bayshore Park, Green Lodge and Pine Grove, some of which made waves in the media by forming an anti-sales brigade.

The Hope group's objective is to equip stayers, also called minority owners, with information about the en bloc process so they can fight to keep their homes.

The website is expansive. It includes a compilation of the collective sales law, legal tips for minority owners and a list of confirmed, on-going and failed en bloc deals.

One member, who declined to be named, joined after some new faces at her condominium tried to get elected to the management committee.

She said: 'I didn't know what these people were up to.'

She learnt soon after when a collective sales order was tabled.

For those who opposed the sale, information about the en bloc law was key, she said. They were facing an uphill battle against a majority of owners who had professional consultants to guide them through the legal minefield.

One minority owner in Rainbow Gardens along Toh Tuck Road wishes he had known earlier how to navigate the en bloc landscape.

The resident, who declined to be named, protested against the sale even though it had the requisite 80 per cent support to go through.

His appeal to the Strata Title Board, a government authority that rules on en bloc sales, was turned down. He took the case to the High Court but, the sale went through before it was heard.

Disappointed, the man said he is considering writing about his ordeal for the Hope website.

He said: 'My advice to minority owners is pray hard you don't get the 80 per cent.'

Meanwhile, the Hope group is cobbling together a list of proposals for the Law Ministry to consider.

A ministry spokesman said it will 'continue to monitor the effect of the changes in practice, and review the feedback to see if further amendments to the en bloc rules are necessary'.

Not everyone is supportive of the Hope website, though.

Mr Issac Chin, an investor who sits on the sales committee of Pearl Bank Apartments at Outram Park, which is trying to go en bloc, does not see the need for such a group.

He said the law is clear: if 80 per cent of the owners want to sell, the sale will go through.



Mr Chin is absolutely correct - the law is indeed 'clear' on the matter of what criteria should a sale counts as valid. However, as many who have been through enblocs and suffered for it know, the law is also very UNCLEAR and SILENT about many things:

• The law is SILENT about the fact that home is a basic fundamental right, and it should not be the case that other owners can take that right away from you. It's like if 80% of your community vote that you must convert to a particular religion, you must comply, whether you like it or not. I'm sure noone will stand up for that, right?
• The law is UNCLEAR about how to handle harassment from aggressive people, be it majority or minority. They are able to act with impunity because they are fully aware that their actions will not count as any form of bad faith under the enbloc law. This shouldn't be the case at all.
  
• The law is UNCLEAR on what should count as good faith, especially considering that numerous arguments have been made in front of STB about many incidents that should constitute bad faith, but were thrown out simply because the law was too restrictive in its meaning of 'good faith'.
• The law is UNCLEAR about itself. We've seen legal titans battle it out in court, we've seen judges issue judgments that seem to sometimes contradict the meaning of the law, and other times advocate the enbloc law to a fanatical degree. If such legal minds that make up our legal profession can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars slugging it out in court, often at our expense, does it not say something about the law itself? Worse, where does that put us civilians who have little to no knowledge of legal matters?

As Mr Chin showed, he chose a particular interpretation of the enbloc law - that of a single point of 80%. Hope stayers will clearly highlight that there are numerous other parts of the law that is highly ambiguous, questionable and even so legally knotted that it really should at the very least be re-examined.

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Tags: hope4stayers, hope group, collective sale, property, enbloc sale, enbloc, en-bloc sale, en-bloc, en bloc, condo, collective sales, singapore

Enbloc Wars: A New HOPE - www.hope4stayers.com

One of the major disadvantages of being a minority owner or someone who is against enbloc sales (a stayer), and which the pro-sales people use to their greatest advantage, is the fact that often such owners are isolated from the processes within their estate, as well as other estates.

After all, the Sales Committee has the advantage of a professional consultancy in the form of marketing agents with plenty of experience in enbloc sales, as well as enbloc lawyers. Stayers, often in fear of retribution from neighbours, live in the shadows and are afraid of voicing their opposition. Sales Committees everywhere know this fact, and use it to their benefit. A marketing agent once told us (in my estate) that there are 3 groups of people in any enbloc estate - the pro-sales, the fencesitters, and the die-hard no-sale stayers. For the last group, information blackout is crucial - the less they know, the less problems they'll pose to the sale. Marketing agents concentrate on working the fencesitters and pushing them towards signing the CSA, but leave the stayers out of the loop. It's an unfortunately legal loophole, but they use it to ensure there are minimal problems. It's a time-tested technique used by most authoritarian governments and dictatorships.

Over the months, we've seen stayers gather within their estates to put up a resistance to their own sales. Some, such as Bayshore Park, are well organised. Others struggle to get their own groups off the ground. Yet other estates have stayers who WISH they could form a group but do not know how to. Some have used this blog and many other anti-enbloc blogs to connect with others in their estates, or learn more about the processes. But on the whole, it's been hard work for many, to mobilise a group, to keep themselves updated on what works, what doesn't.

In recent months, a group of stayers, FROM A NUMBER OF ESTATES, have started to gather together online. From (at last count) 11 estates, these stayers have decided to pool their resources to provide their collective experiences and knowledge to others who hope to stop their own enbloc sales, or at least keep their sales committees straight and above board.

So from now on, any owner who feels concerned about their own enbloc sale, need not be alone anymore. They have the shared wisdom of at least 11 estates who are in the same boat, struggling with enbloc battles. The group - Hope4stayers (www.hope4stayers.com) - aims to:

1. share with selected invited subsidiary proprietors (SPs) of some estates our en bloc experiences and let each other know what is happening in our respective condos;
2. disseminate information on the en bloc process, current legislation and other related policies to enlighten, educate and provide advice to SPs who are facing en bloc attempts in their condos and who are not aware of what the laws provide for;
3. provide a morale booster for Stayers to deal with the dreadful hammer of the enbloc syndrome. (from their website)
   

Please do visit their site, and if you are facing problems with your own enbloc sale and you are a stayer, do contact them. They are well organised, knowledgeable people, most if not all of them professionals in their working lives, who have decided to devote their personal time, resources and efforts to helping other stayers in other estates.

The Hope people are volunteers, and they do not ask for any professional consultancy fees, unlike marketing agents. They are good people, and are genuinely passionate about helping stayers out there.

Give them a call if you are a stayer. Left in the dark. Left out of the loop of your enbloc sale. Need help and seek others who can help you.

www.hope4stayers.com

You can read their Straits Times Forum letter below, which was a response to Jessica Cheam's article (blogged here):


Straits Times Forum Online
12 June 2008
En bloc blues? There's hope, says support group

WE REFER to the report, 'En bloc sales bring out the worst in Singaporeans' (June 1) by Ms Jessica Cheam.

We are a group of concerned friends who love Singapore and the estates in which we live. While we welcome progress, we also cherish the old and familiar.

Our cityscape has improved enormously in the past decades, thanks to the vision of Singaporeans and its leaders.

But for our communities to forge together in good-neighbourliness, roots to grow deeper and future generations to see Singapore as home, we need to preserve our homes. We need to retain the kampung spirit that binds us.

The recent spate of attempts in en bloc sales have impacted us in a way that is counter-productive to our nesting instincts and identity as a gracious society.

We need to stop perpetuating these negative experiences. We want to be free from the constant worry of losing our homes to those who see them as mere financial tools for increasing wealth.

In this spirit of proud home ownership and community living, we have formed an online community called Hope for Stayers (www.hope4stayers.com) where we share our experiences and educate others on the whole process of an en bloc sale.

As 'stayers', we hope that we can contribute to the ethos and values needed to enable Singapore to evolve into a truly first-class progressive nation, where the term 'prosperity' reflects more than dollars and cents.

Lastly, we agree with Ms Cheam's view that it would be prudent to consider a requirement for an 80 or 90 per cent quorum for an extraordinary general meeting to decide whether to push for en bloc sale. This is consistent with the current 80 or 90 per cent requirement for an en bloc sale to succeed.

This would establish whether an estate has such support from the very outset. The current system of 30 per cent quorum encourages a possible abuse of MCST funds in repeated and wasteful attempts at the en bloc 'lottery' and results in the depletion of funds meant primarily to maintain the estate.

We also hope that the entire en bloc sale process is tightened in such a way that it reflects and acknowledges the need for fair play and the deep-rooted sentiment that we have for our homes.

Dai Qiujin
(This letter carries 12 other names)

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Tags: hope4stayers, www.hope4stayers.com, hope, collective sale, collective sales, condo, en bloc, en-bloc, en-bloc sale, enbloc, enbloc sale, singapore, property