Ranjit Singh s/o Ramdarsh Singh (suing as co-executor of the estate of Ramdarsh Singh s/o Danukdhari Singh @ Ram Darash Singh, deceased, and as a beneficiary of the estate) v Harisankar Singh (sued as co-executor of the estate of Ramdarsh Singh s/o Danukdhari Singh @ Ram Darash Singh, deceased, and in his personal capacity)

JurisdictionSingapore
JudgeTan Puay Boon JC
Judgment Date10 November 2020
Neutral Citation[2020] SGHC 243
CourtHigh Court (Singapore)
Hearing Date29 July 2020,02 April 2020
Docket NumberSuit No 1005 of 2019
Plaintiff CounselRanvir Kumar Singh (UniLegal LLC)
Defendant CounselTwang Kern Zern and Lam Jianhao Mark (Central Chambers Law Corporation),Sara Binte Abdul Aziz (Silvester Legal LLC) (watching brief)
Subject MatterFamily Law,Advancement,Presumption,Land,Interest in land,Trusts,Resulting trusts,Presumed resulting trusts
Published date14 November 2020
Tan Puay Boon JC: Introduction

This is a suit by the plaintiff, Ranjit Singh s/o Ramdarsh Singh (“the Plaintiff”), against the defendant, Harisankar Singh (“the Defendant”), concerning a half-share in 85 Syed Alwi Road, Singapore (“the Property”) held in the Defendant’s name as a tenant in common. The Plaintiff alleged that the Defendant holds the half-share on resulting trust for Ramdarsh Singh s/o Danukdhari Singh’s (“the Testator’s”) estate (“the Estate”), and sought relief accordingly.

Having considered the evidence and the parties’ submissions, I find that the Defendant holds the half-share in the Property registered in his name beneficially and dismiss the Plaintiff’s suit. These are my reasons.

Facts

The Plaintiff and Defendant are brothers and two of the Testator’s six children.1 The Testator executed a will dated 27 February 1982 (“the Will”), and passed away on 30 October 1989.2

The Defendant was appointed executor of the Estate by way of a Grant of Probate dated 1 June 1990, and issued on 2 November 1992.3 In the list of assets, it was stated that the Testator’s Estate only had a half-share in the Property.4 In 2017, the Plaintiff, who was identified as one of the executors and trustees in the Will,5 being dissatisfied with the Defendant’s administration of the Estate,6 applied to court and was appointed as co-executor of the Estate by way of a Grant of Probate dated 12 April 2017 and issued on 20 June 2017.7 Further, the Plaintiff commenced an action in HCF/S 5/2017 (“S 5/2017”) of the Family Division of the High Court against the Defendant for various orders relating to the Estate.

Among the reliefs sought in S 5/2017 were two declarations, that (a) the Defendant held his half-share in the Property on resulting trust for the Estate; and (b) the Testator had not made a gift of $100,000 in cash to the Defendant. These related to the Testator’s dealings with these assets inter vivos. Based on the High Court’s decision in URF and another v URH [2020] 3 SLR 314, the Plaintiff took the view that these declarations should be proceeded with in separate proceedings in the High Court, and so amended the statement of claim in S 5/2017 to remove these claims for relief. Having done so, the present proceedings were brought instead to pursue those claims. However, the Plaintiff chose not to pursue the declaration at (b) above, but only sought relief in respect of the Defendant’s half-share in the Property.8 The present action, therefore, deals only with the issue of the beneficial ownership of the half-share in the Property held by the Defendant.

The Plaintiff has brought this suit in his capacity as co-executor of the Estate, as well as in his personal capacity as a beneficiary of the Estate. The suit is stated to be against the Defendant in, similarly, both his capacity as a co-executor of the Estate and in his personal capacity.

By the time of the hearing of this case, as recorded in the judgment for S 5/2017 (HCF/JUD 2/2020), there were only three beneficiaries of the Estate, viz, the parties and their eldest brother, Daya Shanker Singh (“Mr Daya”). He is not a party to the present proceedings, but his solicitors held a watching brief for him during the trial.

I turn to set out the undisputed facts relating to the Property. The Property is a two-storey shophouse.9 The title search on the Property shows that the Defendant is registered as a tenant in common for one half-share in the Property, and also as the owner of the other half-share on trust in his capacity as executor of the Estate.10 The dispute only concerns the former half-share which appears, on the register, to be owned by the Defendant.

On 2 May 1967, the Property had been conveyed by one Loo Ting Soo to one Jiwan Singh (“Mr Jiwan”) and the Testator as tenants in common in equal shares, for the total purchase price of $30,000.00.11 On 10 July 1984, Mr Jiwan conveyed his half-share in the Property to the Defendant for a consideration of $50,000.00. This sum of $50,000.00 was fully funded by the Testator.12 On the same day, the Defendant executed a power of attorney (“the Power of Attorney”), which appointed the Testator as his attorney in matters relating to the Property. The scope and significance of the Power of Attorney are subjects of dispute in this case.

It is not disputed that after the purchase of Mr Jiwan’s share in the Property, the Testator, his wife, and the Defendant, together with the Defendant’s family, moved into the Property. The Testator also employed part of the Property to derive income from rental or license fees. This income (“the Income”) consisted of monies paid by persons who either operated businesses in the shop premises in the Property or stayed in the various rooms of the Property. The facts surrounding how the Testator dealt with the Income of the Property during his lifetime are disputed. After the Testator passed away, the Defendant continued to stay there with his family, and also rented out part of the Property for income.13 In December 1996, the Plaintiff returned to Singapore from India, where he had been living since 1968 after completing his primary education here, and where the parties’ three sisters were also living. Upon his return, the Plaintiff moved into one room in the Property.14

Parties’ cases

The Plaintiff’s case is that the Defendant held his half-share in the Property on resulting trust for the Testator (during his lifetime) and, after the Testator’s demise, for his Estate. In this case, the presumption of resulting trust arises, and it has not been rebutted.15 While the presumption of advancement applies, the Plaintiff argued that the “presumption of advancement is not strong enough to rebut the presumption of resulting trust”.16 There is also no evidence that the Testator intended to make a gift of the half-share in the Property to the Defendant in 1984, but rather, substantial evidence that the Testator did not intend to give the half-share to the Defendant.17

The Defendant conceded that the presumption of resulting trust arises in this case. He relied on the presumption of advancement and asserted that the burden of proof lay on the Plaintiff to prove that the purchase was not intended to be a gift.18 On the Defendant’s case, as the Plaintiff has failed to discharge that burden, the presumption of advancement remains unrebutted, displacing the presumption of resulting trust, with the effect that the Defendant holds the half-share of the Property registered in his name for himself beneficially.19

Applicable law and issues

I begin by setting out the applicable law in this context. As there was some dispute between the parties as to how the burdens of proof interacted, I consider it appropriate to set out the relevant principles before turning to the issues for determination and my conclusions on those issues. In the present case, the application of the presumption of resulting trust is not in dispute – both parties acknowledge that the presumption of resulting trust applies. The question is how this relates to the presumption of advancement.

As a starting point, where the presumption of resulting trust and presumption of advancement are both in issue, the Court of Appeal in Lau Siew Kim v Yeo Guan Chye Terence and another [2008] 2 SLR(R) 108 (“Lau Siew Kim”) at [57] stated that a two-stage approach applies:

The court must first determine if the presumption of resulting trust arises on the facts; and it is only if a resulting trust is presumed that the presumption of advancement would apply to displace that initial presumption.

The effect of these two presumptions relates to the burden of proof. In Lau Siew Kim at [57], the Court of Appeal approved of the following passage from Pecore v Pecore (2007) 279 DLR (4th) 513 at [81]:

If the presumption of advancement applies, an individual who transfers property into another person’s name is presumed to have intended to make a gift to that person. The burden of proving that the transfer was not intended to be a gift, is on the challenger to the transfer. If the presumption of the resulting trust applies, the transferor is presumed to have intended to retain the beneficial ownership. The burden of proving that a gift was intended, is on the recipient of the transfer. [emphasis in original]

Based on this passage, the Plaintiff’s submission that “[the Defendant] has the burden of rebutting the presumption of resulting trust and [the Plaintiff] has the burden of rebutting the presumption of advancement”20 is incorrect to the extent that it suggests that these are burdens that each party has to discharge at the same time. Rather, once the presumption of advancement applies, the burden of proof shifts so that it is now the challenger of the transfer, in this case the Plaintiff, who needs to prove that the transfer was not intended to be a gift. In this regard, the Court of Appeal’s further guidance in Chan Yuen Lan v See Fong Mun [2014] 3 SLR 1048 (“Chan Yuen Lan”) at [160] is helpful, although the parts concerning common intention are not relevant to the present dispute:

In view of our discussion above, a property dispute involving parties who have contributed unequal amounts towards the purchase price of a property and who have not executed a declaration of trust as to how the beneficial interest in the property is to be apportioned can be broadly analysed using the following steps in relation to the available evidence: Is there sufficient evidence of the parties’ respective financial contributions to the purchase price of the property? If the answer is “yes”, it will be presumed that the parties hold the beneficial interest in the property in proportion to their respective contributions to the purchase price (ie, the presumption of resulting trust arises). If the answer is “no”, it will be presumed that the parties hold the beneficial interest in the same manner as that in...

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