Neo Hui Ling v Ang Ah Sew

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Lai Siu Chiu J
• Judgment Date: 03 November 2010
• Neutral Citation: [2010] SGHC 328
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Originating Summons No 488 of 2010
• Year: 2010
• Published date: 11 November 2010
• Hearing Date: 29 July 2010
• Plaintiff Counsel: Lisa Sam (Lisa Sam & Co)
• Defendant Counsel: Steven Lee (Steven Lee, Dason & Partners)
• Subject Matter: Land,Courts and Jurisdiction
• Citation: [2010] SGHC 328

Lai Siu Chiu J: The background

Neo Hui Ling (“the plaintiff”) and her mother Ang Ah Sew (“the defendant”) are joint tenants of No 55 Jalan Chengam, Singapore 578338 (“the Property”). The plaintiff applied by way of the above Originating Summons (“the application”) for an order that the Property be sold. After hearing the application on 29 July 2010, I granted the same and ordered, inter alia, that the Property be sold and that the net proceeds of the sale to be paid to the plaintiff, subject to 50% being held by the plaintiff’s solicitors as stakeholders pending further orders from the court regarding the parties’ respective interests in the Property. As the defendant has filed a notice of appeal (in Civil Appeal No. 142 of 2010), I now set out the grounds for my decision.

The facts

Until 4 March 2010, the plaintiff and the defendant lived together at the Property with the plaintiff’s husband and her two younger twin sisters, who are aged 35 (“the twins”). The plaintiff had purchased the Property, a 3-storey, 6 room building in September 2007 for $1.88m. This was before the plaintiff’s marriage in December 2009. According to the plaintiff, she included the defendant as a joint tenant so that the defendant would have a roof over her head if the plaintiff should unexpectedly pass away.

By both parties’ accounts, the parties had a close relationship after the plaintiff’s father left the family in 1983. The relationship deteriorated, however, during the time that the parties resided at the Property. This culminated in an incident on 2 March 2010, where the defendant and the twins as well as five male strangers and one female stranger apparently barged into the plaintiff’s room and purported to perform religious rites to cleanse the plaintiff’s room of ‘dirty’ things, including asking the plaintiff to drink talisman water. The defendant and the twins had been concerned for some time that the plaintiff was under some spell and had been possessed, for reasons that the parties dispute. The defendant agreed that the rites did take place, but maintained that she did not know that they were as traumatic for the plaintiff as the latter alleged.

As a result of the incident, the plaintiff decided not to stay at the Property and told the defendant on 3 March 2010 that she wanted to sell the Property and that the defendant and the twins would have to vacate the place. The plaintiff moved out on 4 March 2010 and began living out of a...