HORIZON TOWERS SAGA

Weekend • December 8, 2007

Tan Hui Leng
huileng@mediacorp.com.sg

THE applicants' prayer is granted.

And with those words, the Strata Titles Board (STB) declared on Friday that the highly-contested en bloc sale of Horizon Towers will go through despite objections from its minority owners.

STB deputy president Philip Chan took less than 10 minutes to announce the board's final ruling and the reasons for approving the sale application this time round, after rejecting it in August on a technicality.

"The board's decision is as follows, the applicants' (majority owners) prayer is granted … the board is of the opinion that the respondents (the minority owners) have not made out their respective cases as a matter of fact," he told about 90 people, including 70 condo owners, who had packed the room at the STB office in Maxwell Road.

A palpable sense of subdued relief could be detected in the room after he finished talking. Amid the silence, a lone woman clapped.

A few condo owners looked dejected as residents started filing out of the room.

"The decision was not unexpected," said a minority owner, Ms J Tan.

Another looked close to tears as he told reporters that with the current property prices, he was not sure where he could afford to move.

Looking somewhat weary, sales committee chairman Lim Seng Hoo said: "We worked very hard for this outcome … It's been a very long drawn out thing, we're all very tired after many months."

The Horizon Towers saga started early this year when Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL) and its two partners clinched the deal to buy the condominium for $500 million.

Under the agreement, which had an 84-per-cent consent level, the 199 apartment owners would have pocketed about $2.3 million each and the 11 penthouse owners would have received at least $4 million each.

However, some minority owners raised objections to the sale, alleging, among other things, irregularities in the procedures leading to the sale.

As en bloc sale prices skyrocketed, owners who had originally consented to the deal joined in the dissenting voices, pointing out that the $500-million deal no longer reflected the condominium's "true value".

In August, the STB accepted the argument put forward by the minority owners that there were technical irregularities in the application for the collective sale order.

However, in October, the High Court, which had been asked to review the STB's decision, sent the case back to the board, culminating in an eight-day hearing that led to Friday's decision.

It came four days before the sale completion date expires on Dec 11.

While the grounds of decision will be out in "due course", Dr Chan said the STB was partly guided by a similar en bloc dispute related to Phoenix Court as well as parliamentary speeches by Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee and Law Minister S Jayakumar regarding what constitutes "bad faith".

Ultimately, Dr Chan said, the minority owners had failed to prove that the sales committee acted in bad faith .

The minority owners are now mulling their next step. They can still appeal to the High Court.

In a statement later, a group of some 80 consenting owners said: "We are happy with the decision … We look forward to the buyers confirming that they will proceed with the deal and withdrawing the legal suits they have started against some owners."

Source from: Todayonline @ Dec 8, 2007