Speaker 1: You're listening to a CNA podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to CNA's Money Talks podcast. I'm Andrea Heng,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that like me, you don't enjoy arguing
Speaker 2: with your loved ones. Fighting over anything with your family
Speaker 2: is distressing enough, but when it comes to assets, it
Speaker 2: can be even uglier and more painful.
Speaker 2: I have a sobering fact for you. It's growing more common.
Speaker 2: In fact, an average of 10 families a year fight
Speaker 2: over properties here in Singapore, and that's according to media reports.
Speaker 2: The same reports say that there have been at least
Speaker 2: 130 such cases in the past decade alone.
Speaker 2: So what can you do then to protect yourself in
Speaker 2: a similar situation? Today, I'm asking Lim Fung Ping, he's
Speaker 2: director and head of family and private wealth Practice group
Speaker 2: at Yuan Law LLC. Hi Pin, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Andrew. I'm happy to be here. Now, you
Speaker 2: must have seen many cases of families fighting over property
Speaker 2: or assets in your career. What's the one that stood
Speaker 2: out to you the most so far? What's trending now,
Speaker 2: what's unfortunate, as you say is instances where
Speaker 2: Infighting in a family over property, how a property should
Speaker 2: be sold. One very common and increasing trend we have
Speaker 2: is what is called forced sale kind of applications in court.
Speaker 2: So the scenarios looks like this, A and B are
Speaker 2: co-owner of a property, could be a condo, could be
Speaker 2: an HDB landed, and A wants out and B wants
Speaker 2: to stay. So it could be parent and child, or
Speaker 2: it could be two siblings.
Speaker 2: So in the past 10 years, I've done close to
Speaker 2: 10 cases already, so it could be like 1 a year.
Speaker 2: So that's a common scenario and when a party wants
Speaker 2: to move on, the party that wants to move on
Speaker 2: then apply to the High Court, yeah. OK. Is this
Speaker 2: worrying to you? Are you concerned?
Speaker 2: It is and I think one of the concerning points
Speaker 2: is that how did the family land up in this
Speaker 2: kind of situation in my convincing practice, which means when
Speaker 2: people buy and sell property.
Speaker 2: I, as a lawyer, try to help them be mindful
Speaker 2: about long-term arrangements, right? So how you buy property matters,
Speaker 2: but we lawyers call the manner of holding, whether it's
Speaker 2: joint tenancy or tenants in common, can affect the nature
Speaker 2: of the holding can affect the parties for the long term.
Speaker 2: And holding is basically legally for ownership. That's right. We
Speaker 2: have two people and you have divergent views that that
Speaker 2: complicates things. So for example, HDB.
Speaker 2: Some people think, oh, very convenient, uh, two people who
Speaker 2: are a bit, uh, I won't say elderly but past
Speaker 2: middle age, and then when they buy HDB flat, then
Speaker 2: they conveniently ask their single child to join them, many
Speaker 2: cases like that, I have yeah, and the single child,
Speaker 2: adult child says, la, we are Asian, right, so we
Speaker 2: help our parents lah, you know, we can get the loan,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing, and then.
Speaker 2: Very commonly that single person finds someone special and then
Speaker 2: they want to apply for the BTO, then there's a
Speaker 2: situation here and that's very unfortunate because the child has
Speaker 2: every right to remove his name so that he's eligible
Speaker 2: for his BTO right? and that's one very common scenario.
Speaker 2: So the family there thought, oh, it's convenient for financing
Speaker 2: to get the adult child in, but they didn't think, hey,
Speaker 2: down the road. So along familial arrangements like this is
Speaker 2: very common for refinancing, but another situation of course is
Speaker 2: writing of wills. I think it's something that we've discussed
Speaker 2: here on the Money Talks podcast also how Singaporeans are
Speaker 2: unaware of the importance of having a will written out
Speaker 2: because it really does help mitigate some of these issues
Speaker 2: that you're talking about right now. Do you think that
Speaker 2: more work needs to be done to
Speaker 2: Raise the awareness and the importance of writing a will.
Speaker 2: I've written 3 books. My first book was about the LPA,
Speaker 2: my second one was about probate, and my 3rd 1
Speaker 2: is about family matters. In all my prefaces on my books,
Speaker 2: I say that every Singaporean has a very oversimplified view
Speaker 2: of things. I like to put it that way and
Speaker 2: in in one of my prefaces, I also say it's
Speaker 2: maybe partly because we are a new society.
Speaker 2: To put it politely, sometimes we have this immigrant mentality.
Speaker 2: If you look at American culture, even like New York City,
Speaker 2: if you look at the Greeks and Italians and even
Speaker 2: the Chinese, they are very frugal. What's the hallmark of
Speaker 2: immigrant mentality? Frugality, so why spend more money. So I,
Speaker 2: I believe that
Speaker 2: as professionals or as concerned stakeholders in society, whether it's
Speaker 2: government or self-help groups, we need to understand where our
Speaker 2: population is at. If people have this immigrant mentality, then
Speaker 2: they don't see the value of it. Everything is simple
Speaker 2: and if you look at a lot of ads, a
Speaker 2: lot of requests that
Speaker 2: My team gets, he said, oh, I want to do
Speaker 2: a simple will. Have you ever asked a doctor, I
Speaker 2: want a simple operation. No, you let the doctor decide
Speaker 2: whether this operation is simple or not, right? So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not really up to you. Even now with patients
Speaker 2: and doctors, oh, doc, I want antibiotics. Many of my
Speaker 2: doctor friends go, who made you the doctor? So that's
Speaker 2: why I come back to your point. Creating awareness and
Speaker 2: understanding is very important and in my area of work,
Speaker 2: the clients that I really appreciate.
Speaker 2: And not the high net worth ones alone, but it
Speaker 2: happens to be that not all, but a lot of
Speaker 2: good family, I call it good families, they understand the
Speaker 2: value of doing a comprehensive will, or a simple will.
Speaker 2: So let's take the scenario of the average Singaporean, 80%
Speaker 2: of us live in HDB flats. Now, somebody
Speaker 2: In their 50s, says, oh, I want to finally do
Speaker 2: my will, I want do a simple will. I just
Speaker 2: want to give my HDB flat to my two children,
Speaker 2: 2 is enough. So give my two children bolela. How
Speaker 2: can it be? Why do I need to pay a
Speaker 2: lawyer $600 for that or whatever $100? But they are
Speaker 2: not aware of the consequences and it gets even more
Speaker 2: complicated with private property because let's say father wants to
Speaker 2: give to
Speaker 2: Two children again, and then the two children already have
Speaker 2: their own HDB flats, so they can't inherit this private
Speaker 2: property depending on the scenarios and then let's say they
Speaker 2: Inherit it nevertheless, and then, but maybe one wants to
Speaker 2: say maybe even without HDB flats, they want to inherit it,
Speaker 2: maybe it's a bungalow, so one has to buy the
Speaker 2: other one out that incurs PSD, potentially ABSD, all these taxes,
Speaker 2: there was no planning. So I have even moneyed families
Speaker 2: that the grandfather leaves at $8 million.10 million dollars, $150
Speaker 2: million property, and it's given to 16 beneficiaries. Yeah, even
Speaker 2: grandchildren have 116 share in the.
Speaker 2: It's a minefield. So there was not enough planning and
Speaker 2: in terms of wills also, I've seen wills that were
Speaker 2: made 35 years ago, the postal code is 2 digits.
Speaker 2: So I tell people now in terms of wills, you
Speaker 2: should treat it like you're
Speaker 2: iOS or your app, if you don't update it, I
Speaker 2: can't use my SingPass. So your will is the same
Speaker 2: because life changes life stages and things like that. And
Speaker 2: not just your life, but I think the environment around
Speaker 2: you changes as well. Laws change, regulations change, tax changes
Speaker 2: as well, yeah. I'm curious about that case where you
Speaker 2: have parents leaving their child in the will or I'll
Speaker 2: just split it with the 2 children or 16 beneficiaries,
Speaker 2: what have you.
Speaker 2: So what would your advice be then in those scenarios,
Speaker 2: let's say you catch it before the owner of the
Speaker 2: property dies. What would your advice be then? It's the
Speaker 2: same in anything in life.
Speaker 2: What's the most important thing to you? What's the objective?
Speaker 2: You go to a car showroom, right? What do you
Speaker 2: need a car for? What's your budget? Are you a
Speaker 2: car enthusiast or not? Do you want to just go
Speaker 2: and service the car once a year, that type of,
Speaker 2: or what? So same if you will. So I understand
Speaker 2: what you're saying. A lot of ladies come to me
Speaker 2: because I think ladies are more, they want to do
Speaker 2: housekeeping and I always tell men, you're very blessed if
Speaker 2: you have a
Speaker 2: wife that wants to drag you down to the law
Speaker 2: office to get advice or do up your will. And yeah,
Speaker 2: so how I help the clients actually what's most important
Speaker 2: to you. Yeah, and it's quite normal for a person
Speaker 2: to without advice, I just want to be fair, Asian, right?
Speaker 2: My parents are like that. I just want to be fair. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And another question I ask them is.
Speaker 2: What's most important to you besides being fair? There are
Speaker 2: certain things that I will ask them, for example, and
Speaker 2: there was a grandfather, 68-year-old grandfather who had 5 very
Speaker 2: successful children. I think he had one profession, each one lawyer,
Speaker 2: one doctor, one banker, everything, yeah, he had a full
Speaker 2: house and he had 7 grandchildren, and he in particular
Speaker 2: wanted to be fair to his children and his grandchildren.
Speaker 2: I said, I was a much younger lawyer then, so
Speaker 2: I said, uncle, wow, you're really blessed. I said, do
Speaker 2: your children really need money?
Speaker 2: They said, no lah, they are doing so well. I said,
Speaker 2: then what is, what you really want to do with
Speaker 2: your legacy? I said, oh, actually I want to show
Speaker 2: my grandchildren love and show them what's the importance of
Speaker 2: having a good education.
Speaker 2: Right, and so it, long story short, he turned his
Speaker 2: whole world into creating an educational trust for his 7 grandchildren. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's nice. What about the other side of the negotiating
Speaker 2: table or the beneficiaries, right? Have you come into instances
Speaker 2: where even if the beneficiaries are well off, they're.
Speaker 2: They still believe, no, I have a right to this
Speaker 2: piece of property. It's about my right to possession. So
Speaker 2: how do you handle that? These days, these kind of
Speaker 2: scenarios also are coming around and some parents take the
Speaker 2: view of Warren Buffett and the like. I've really given
Speaker 2: you stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna give my kids anything because why I
Speaker 2: asked you this question is because in my mind, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to put it quite crudely as well, you
Speaker 2: don't have to be poor to want to fight for
Speaker 2: a piece of what you think you deserve. We just
Speaker 2: resolve this case, they were fighting over $30,000 that's it,
Speaker 2: they fought for one year and they're not rich and
Speaker 2: we were telling them.
Speaker 2: Why are you fighting? Can we help you settle this
Speaker 2: principle is principle, and then I said, OK, but principles
Speaker 2: are costly and but some people, you have to respect
Speaker 2: their decision. Yeah, but coming back to that, yeah, so
Speaker 2: at the end of the day when the executor says, I,
Speaker 2: I want to just give to charity and nothing to
Speaker 2: my children.
Speaker 2: Uh, in Singapore, it's very hard to challenge, right? In Australia,
Speaker 2: in other jurisdictions, there are possible means to to do it, right?
Speaker 2: Singapore is very hard for a beneficiary to challenge and say, oh,
Speaker 2: I want a piece of the action because I'm entitled
Speaker 2: to it. In Singapore, there's only a law that says
Speaker 2: that if you are a dependent, so if you're handicapped
Speaker 2: or you're disabled, and and also that only entitles you
Speaker 2: to maintenance, maintenance to do like to survive, not like
Speaker 2: a share of the estate. I'm seeing more.
Speaker 2: More of these actually you're right. They feel that they've
Speaker 2: done enough for their kids or even their grandkids and
Speaker 2: that's it. Just out of curiosity, what proportion of cases
Speaker 2: involve private property versus HDB flat? Anecdotally, I would just
Speaker 2: say it's in my 50/50. It is pretty split down
Speaker 2: the middle. OK, I think it's 50/50, but bearing in
Speaker 2: mind that 80% of us live in HDB flats, yeah.
Speaker 2: But anecdotally is fifty-fifty. Let's go into the process now,
Speaker 2: the bit of the technical aspect of a property dispute.
Speaker 2: How are they first raised? How do they first come
Speaker 2: to you and then what are the key steps you
Speaker 2: would take once that case lands on your desk. So
Speaker 2: typically how things go in Singapore, mostly people will make
Speaker 2: inquiries in the law firm. They will write in an
Speaker 2: email and then say this is the problem, right? I
Speaker 2: want out or whatever it is, I want to share.
Speaker 2: So whatever the inquiry is, the proper thing to do
Speaker 2: is have a meet up and have a discussion and
Speaker 2: discuss with the client the objectives and also what I
Speaker 2: would do is propose certain options and since you're asking
Speaker 2: what are the steps, one of the first options is
Speaker 2: not going to court. Yes, I get that sense. One
Speaker 2: of the first options is actually to me is to
Speaker 2: advise the client of their rights.
Speaker 2: Because some people come with misconceptions, misconceptions of what they're
Speaker 2: entitled to. So some people need a reality check, not
Speaker 2: in Singapore. You watch too much Judge Judy, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: So the first step is always to get advisory and
Speaker 2: assessment and then your legal advisor can just tell you
Speaker 2: this is the score, this is where you stand, and
Speaker 2: then for me, I would say, oh, you have a
Speaker 2: claim or you have a case, but it is at
Speaker 2: the moment, not.
Speaker 2: Ready, it's not strong enough. So first thing assessment, giving
Speaker 2: the kinds of options. One of the options could be
Speaker 2: to strengthen their case, gather more evidence, but finally you
Speaker 2: reach a stage where again it's not go to court,
Speaker 2: it's to write a letter to the other side and say,
Speaker 2: make a proposal, say, look, this is the situation, this
Speaker 2: is my stand. I think this is a fair proposal.
Speaker 2: I pay you this or you pay me this.
Speaker 2: And we do this or what, this is how we
Speaker 2: do things. So it's essentially mediation up to a degree.
Speaker 2: So at what point then does it end up in court? OK,
Speaker 2: it's not quite mediation, what we call it is negotiation.
Speaker 2: So you write a proposal letter and wait for the
Speaker 2: other side to respond. Most lawyers will actually go through
Speaker 2: this process of negotiation by letter, at least one round to.
Speaker 2: When that doesn't work, and then we have to see,
Speaker 2: you mentioned mediation in family justice court and in the
Speaker 2: state courts, there are court mediations, which is free, which
Speaker 2: is very good. That means the court doesn't charge for it,
Speaker 2: but that's because I think our courts really believe in
Speaker 2: mediation and since I've been in practice for 28 years,
Speaker 2: there's always been this and it's been going from strength
Speaker 2: to strength. So mediation, I'm a firm believer in it.
Speaker 2: Because I think mediation is also a way for the
Speaker 2: mediator to give parties a reality check because everyone thinks
Speaker 2: their case is bound to win. Is that the ultimatum
Speaker 2: before it goes to court that mediation? Well, yes, if
Speaker 2: there's a breakthrough in mediation.
Speaker 2: Like mediation, is it one day and that's it, but
Speaker 2: court mediation normally is just not one day. If there's hope,
Speaker 2: there can be a second round and that's where the
Speaker 2: court mediator, normally a district judge will facilitate the parties
Speaker 2: coming to a middle ground, but private mediation usually just
Speaker 2: usually it's just one off. They try to finish.
Speaker 2: If it starts at 9 they'll try to finish by
Speaker 2: 9 p.m. and then that's it, yeah. So at what
Speaker 2: point does it go to court when fails? What kind
Speaker 2: of cost are we looking at here from start to
Speaker 2: end of that entire process that you talked about here
Speaker 2: and which one is going to be the most expensive
Speaker 2: part of the process? The initial part of writing letters
Speaker 2: is can give us a range, it will be anything
Speaker 2: from 20 to $5000 just to start negotiating, but when
Speaker 2: you pass that.
Speaker 2: When you go to court, it starts at 8 because
Speaker 2: the 4 year application goes to the high court. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's different as well. And it really depends. It
Speaker 2: can range anything from 8 to 10, 12K and go
Speaker 2: all the way to 40, 50k and this is in
Speaker 2: the High Court. Yeah, so that is the reason why
Speaker 2: when you usually go to the High Court, it's usually about.
Speaker 2: A condo or a landed piece of property because the
Speaker 2: stakes are higher, it's a higher ticket item, right? So
Speaker 2: if it's in the arena of divorce in the family
Speaker 2: justice court, then that's where another very big area happens
Speaker 2: as well when I get inquiries about children.
Speaker 2: And I meet the father or the mother for the
Speaker 2: first time, we talk about children, who are going to
Speaker 2: get the children. But the next big thing, in fact,
Speaker 2: some people talk about the, yeah, because, to be fair,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's not an issue that the kids are going
Speaker 2: to go with the mom anyway. So now they worry
Speaker 2: about the HDB flat or their condo or their private
Speaker 2: property and then there again in even the family justice court,
Speaker 2: you're trying to deal with it. It's one.
Speaker 2: the big factors in the divorce proceedings. Just going back
Speaker 2: to the portion of the question, do the lawyers' fees
Speaker 2: come up to a lot in these cases as well
Speaker 2: in terms of what we will have to be prepared
Speaker 2: to pay? It can be if both lawyers are trying
Speaker 2: to be therapeutic collaborative, and both lawyers want to keep
Speaker 2: on negotiating, but one of their clients, I want to fight.
Speaker 2: You can't do anything, lawyer has to say.
Speaker 2: I have to respect the client's view and advance his case.
Speaker 2: So some people just don't lend themselves to mediation. It
Speaker 2: says fight means fight. So it's very yeah, even against
Speaker 2: the lawyer's advice. They just said no, I just, or
Speaker 2: another way some people are interesting, they say, I just
Speaker 2: want to let the judge decide. Yeah, for some people,
Speaker 2: I think it's just
Speaker 2: I don't want to decide, so I let the judge decide.
Speaker 2: So it's just like you have a person says, I
Speaker 2: don't want to negotiate with you. I don't want to
Speaker 2: consider your proposal. I just want to present, both of
Speaker 2: us present everything to the judge and let the judge decide.
Speaker 2: So in a way they're not making a decision. So
Speaker 2: sometimes the mediation is difficult and I see my counterpart
Speaker 2: lawyer having a challenge because
Speaker 2: His client or her client doesn't want to decide, and
Speaker 2: he turns to her, you decide for me, I can't
Speaker 2: decide for you. I can't decide for you. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's wonderful if two people can compromise and just say, OK,
Speaker 2: and that can be done very early on at negotiation
Speaker 2: stage of two letters. Say the dispute involves family members
Speaker 2: who don't have an alternative home or can't put their
Speaker 2: share of the bill.
Speaker 2: What options are available to them, what kind of support
Speaker 2: can they get and also on the other side of
Speaker 2: the aisle, what will the suing party for the lack
Speaker 2: of a better term, need to prepare for? Let's take
Speaker 2: the HDB situation, it's a divorce context but same. The
Speaker 2: owner was the gentleman and the lady was not Singaporean,
Speaker 2: they were married, but
Speaker 2: She's just a registered occupier, but after the divorce, HDB
Speaker 2: ruling is that she can't stay there anymore, she cannot
Speaker 2: be the registered occupant doesn't really have in that sense. OK.
Speaker 2: So that is of course a very weak position for
Speaker 2: the party that is not a co-owner, so she has
Speaker 2: to move out. But if she's Singaporean citizen or PR
Speaker 2: but definitely citizen.
Speaker 2: I know the HDB has many schemes like rental flats
Speaker 2: and things like that. I understand what you're saying because
Speaker 2: some people can be very transactional and says, I want
Speaker 2: you out, even though you may have a right to
Speaker 2: be there. So that's where if the person has a
Speaker 2: right and they came to see me, they said, look,
Speaker 2: let's negotiate. If you can't upkeep the place and things
Speaker 2: like that, then, then you need to
Speaker 2: Come to some compromise if maybe if it's a private property,
Speaker 2: sell and then buy a two-room flat or something, there
Speaker 2: must be some practical solution, but I think what we
Speaker 2: are getting at is that people don't sit down and talk.
Speaker 2: It's a really tricky conversation to have, but one that
Speaker 2: I was really glad to have had with you. So
Speaker 2: thanks very much for sitting in this chair. Thank you
Speaker 2: for having me.
Speaker 2: For being on the Money Talks podcast. Listeners, we hope
Speaker 2: this episode provides the steps to make sure that you
Speaker 2: and your loved one are protected from future disputes. Hopefully
Speaker 2: none at all. As they say, sharing is caring, so
Speaker 2: if you know anyone who might benefit from this episode,
Speaker 2: please send it their way. Share feedback with us.
Speaker 2: as well. Money Talks is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
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Speaker 2: us a rating there as well. Thank you to the team.
Speaker 2: Tiffany Ang, Junaini Johari, Joanne Chan, Hanida Amin, Sae Wind,
Speaker 2: Ili Manso, Tan Wen Lin. I'm Andrea Heng, and this
Speaker 2: has been CNA's Money Talks podcast. Thank you very much
Speaker 2: for listening.