Tenant Right

[pokey30]

For those of you who are new to Singapore, here is a little bit of sharing of experience from me. When you look for an apartment to rent, the landlord is obliged to check your background to make sure you are not staying in this country illegally.

A lot of us tenats would probably think it is not necessary to check the background of the landlord. Well, let me tell you this. I believe there is a way to check for the landlord's background too. My experience told me that it is probably worth the time and money (agent told me the fee is only $70). I, along with other people in my building (a 5 storey building, total of 18 apartment units) have to evacuate the building less than ONE WEEK after receiving a Notice from a government office. Apparently the landlord who owns the whole building has gone bankrupt. He was issued with a Writ of Possession by a Bank ONE YEAR ago, which mentioned that the Bank will take over his building in one year time. That means when I moved in, he actually had received that Write of Possession already, yet he still took me (and my neighbors) in.

So please do take precaution when you're renting a place.

[Legal Beagle]

Hey, Board Manager ... what's the call, is this a real risk?  Scares the heck out of most of us that have read this post. Poor pokey .. is there any recourse do you think?

[BoardManager]

BM...waking up from his slumber to answer the call of duty (er, also call of nature   ):

Yes, there is a risk. Hence the more prudent things to do would include:
1. Having a lawyer help you establish the real identity of the owner/landlord. People have been reported to have paid deposit monies and rentals to bogeys!
2. Check also if the property is in one owner's name or in several names. Complications can arise, eg in a potential divorce case, when rentals going to only one party, and the spouse contests. Again, a lawyer's services would be useful.
3. Sometimes, properties have just been sold, and unscrupulous landlords can create lots of problems by not disclosing the rental deal to both the tenant and the new owner.
4. Searches can also be made by lawyers to see if any writ has been served on the owner/s.

Given the potential hazards, it is a case of whether one should pay a little for specialist help - including using reputable agencies to help select and negotiate rentals, and lawyers to check the gaps. Even the tenancy agreement can be full of errors because of 'cut-and-paste' documents used by lesser agents - or adopt a DIY and amd a 'all the best' mentality, thinking that such things will never happen to me.

Personally, I advocate getting the experts to help, even when it means incurring some costs.

[This message has been edited by BoardManager (edited 16-03-2001).]

[Pat]

I had a similar thing happen to us recently. We received a notice on Feb.23 from my lanlords banks Lawyers stating we had 30 days to vacate the premisis. Our landlord had not paid his mortgage in 4 months. Well when it all came to a head it seems our landlord did NOT tell the bank that he had tenants in his house,so the bank assumed they were kicking the owners out. We have straightened the entire matter now by haveing a Lawyer (at Landlords expense) write up a new tennant aggreement that states we will now pay the bank directly so even if the landlord goes belly up they can't kick us out since his mortgage is being paid by us, and the aggreement is between us and the bank. Who would have thought this could happen especially when this landlord was highly recommended by another expat family!  How does one really know?