A Game Of Thrones in Condominium Disputes And Filing of Case With The Singapore Strata Title Board

This is a follow-up posting from the last one on "Problems With Living In Singapore Condominiums- Not As Glamorous As One Think It Is". When communication breaks down between residents and the Management Committee of the MCST, all hell breaks loose, in particularly, with many egos being at stake, some estate issues will definitely escalate out of control. This is where a group of very pissed off resident group will get together to campaign to overthrow the incumbent Management Council team by mudslinging on social media and tit for tat went on between the 2 parties This is also whereby some residents will file a case with the Strata Title Board ("STB") to take on their own MCST.

1. Procedure of Filing to STB and whereby all residents gets punished from depletion of management funds in the legal dispute.

From my last posting, one typical problem will be whether 2nd and 3rd car can park for free issue in most condominiums  or whether the MCST can enforce stringent wheel clamping rules against fellow residents.

The proceedings at Strata Titles Boards consist of 4 main stages:

(1.1)  Application: The Applicant will file an application against the Respondent.

(1.2) Mediation: All parties (Applicant and Respondent) are required to attend mediation session(s) fixed by the Board. The matter may stop at mediation if parties resolve the dispute at that stage.

(1.3) Hearing: If the matter cannot be resolved at the mediation stage, the Board will give directions to the parties to prepare for a hearing and fix the hearing date.

(1.4) Post-hearing: The Board’s orders is binding on parties and may be enforced at the Singapore State Courts.

1.1 Cost of Application Stage- Money commences burning

An application fee of S$500 is required to submit the application along with the "prayers" being sought. Prayers here is not referring to the religious prayers but rather a specific request for judgment, relief and/or damages at the conclusion of a complaint or petition. The applicant/applicants will typically hire a lawyer at this stage to help prepare the filing and incur additional cost of between S$3K to S$5K.

At this point, the MCST is known as the respondent. The Management Council Members may also be named by the applicant/applicants individually as additional respondents along with the MCST. To get ready a respond, the MCST will typically incurr legal fees for crafting the respond. This can cost anywhere from S$3K to S$5K depending on the number of issues, its complexity and hours spent by the legal counsel.

 1.2  Mediation- Extra money burnt for legal counsel to attend Mediation session on behalf of Applicants/Respondent

The lawyers representing the applicants and the MCST at this stage will be very happy as they can bill around S$3K to attend the mediation session. 

So applicant wasted S$3K out of their own pocket if they hired legal counsel at this stage and the respondent will also waste S$3K. 

Normally, there will be at least 2 mediation sessions before all stakeholders either resolve the issues or decided that mediation is useless and to move on to full hearing. If there is another mediation session, another S$3K will be wasted at each side.

Therefore, at least S$6K will thus be burnt by applicants and respondent respectively at the mediation sessions.

1.3 to 1.4 Hearing and Post Hearing

There will be an STB hearing cost here as well as individual legal counsel cost. This stage typically cost around S$10K to S$20k for each respective party depending on the number of hours spent by the legal counsel on hearing preparation and submission.

One import thing to note here is that many people have the wrong notion that if they win the STB case, they can get back all legal consultation and mediation costs from the losing party. This is totally wrong concept. Only party to party cost and panel hearing cost can be recovered. To give an example, I have known of MCST who spent S$50K in legal fees overall to defend against the prayers sought by the applicants and won the case but in the end only got back S$10K in cost recovery. 

Summary

A typical STB case may thus cost up to S$20K to S$30K for applicants and respondent respectively depending on the number of prayers and the complexity of the issues. This is a lose lose situation as this means that S$40K to S$60K would have been wasted by both parties. The only winners out of this will be the legal counsels. Unfortunately, such incidents are not isolated. There are many people with different personalities and principles living in any estate. Residents should thus participate actively in the Annual General Meeting and ensure that they elect their council members wisely. 

Most importantly, more residents should step forward to take up the thankless job of being a management council member lest the council is left in the control of an extremist group of residents who can then make numerous house rules to turn the entire estate into an army camp or prison which will have negative repercussions such as the estate getting into multiple lawsuits with vendors at Small Claims Tribunal/State Courts or cases lodged by fellow residents at STB.

Problems with Living in Singapore Condominiums- Not as glamorous as one think it is

After buying a brand new condominium and waiting for the construction to reach Temporary Occupation Permit stage typically requires 3-4 years for an average 600 unit size development. Of course, many residents could not contain their excitement upon receiving their keys and moving in after renovating their dream home. But this is where the nightmare will start. 

1. Dealing with hardcore smoker neighbours staying above or below your unit smoking every 2 hours at Balcony

Many condo residents were sold by their property agent the idea of Alfresco dinning by utilising the balcony space. Hence they have planned for dinning tables to be shifted to the balcony area in order to free up inner space and a bigger allowance for the living room.  Alfresco is a style of dining that is casual and often offer a party-like ambience and looks cool. 

However, some condo residents are in for a rude shock when they discover that at dinner time, they often have to breathe in cancer causing harmful second hand smoke coming from their neighbours staying directly at the unit above them or under them. The effect of the second hand smoke is so bad that any units within a radius of 2 floors (approximately 6m) from that chain smoker unit will have second hand smoke drifting into their balcony.

Hence it is a fallacy to believe that upgrading from HDB to a EC or private condominium will mean the end of the 2nd hand smoke issue. This second hand smoke issue will never go away unless one purchases a landed property. 

2. Lack of good talents who wants to volunteer to join the Management Committee after the end of the 1st year
During the 1st year, the developer will run the condo along with the appointed Management Agent. However, by the end of the 1st AGM, the MCST is supposed to elect its own Management Committee ("MC") members. Most of the good residents will not want to volunteer. In Army National Service terms, these are extra duties which snaps up valuable time especially for residents who are still working.  There is also no remuneration for being in the MC to look after the estate. One will also have to deal with countless unreasonable complaints and fellow residents demanding to be served by the MC in all their requests. Hence most residents do not want to take up such thankless job. 

Those who joined will have a few types, namely, (i) truly altruism folks (this group is a rare breed), (ii) power crazy folks, (iii) resident associated with the People's Association or government grassroot and (iv) residents who need to get their children into the primary school of their choice- type (iv) is actually a subset of (iii) as the objective is to form the "Neighbourhood Committee" to promote grassroot outreach into the condo.

3. Carparking Woes

This is the most frequent issue in all condominiums. If there are insufficient carpark lots, this will create a problem. If there are ample carpark lots, this will also still be a problem and headache. The insufficient carpark lot scenario think everyone understands why it is a problem. SO let me elaborate on why a condo with ample carpark lots will also be a big problem. 

In most condominium, carparking house rule will stipulate that every owner will be entitled to 1 carpark lot. Then there will be units without cars and units with multiple car ownership. Those with multiple cars will assert that since there are ample lots, they can park unlimited cars in the condo to save on thousand of dollars of annual season parking. The other non-car owner group will be unhappy and demanded that this is unfair as maintenance such as carparking surface epoxy paintings and carpark barriers maintenance is unfairly borne by them hence they will demand second car parking charges. Once the root of all evil (money) surfaced, then World War 3 will begin in the Condo estate. Hence if during the 1st AGM, the carparking and registration rule is not converted into by-law, some of the owners with multiple cars will start to "play around with the Ënglish" in order to argue the best case scenario for themselves.

There are other issues for carparking rules that I will probably go into more details in my future posts.

Parting thoughts:

A smart and wise resident should propose a motion to convert all the existing house-rules into by-law in order for the MC to have legal powers to enforce them. This is the critical step at the 1st AGM which a lot of newbies do not know. House rules set by developers are just rules that looks fun but in the eyes of the Building Maintenance and Strata Act ("BMSMA"), they cannot be enforced without being blessed by the General Body of residents to convert into by-law.