SINGAPORE – A week after she was diagnosed with final-stage cancer, a woman willed her assets to her two sons and signed a statutory declaration in an effort to preserve a share of an HDB flat for them.
In the declaration, Madam Ang Geok Kheng claimed that her husband – the joint tenant of the Jurong East flat – abandoned the family in 2006 and did not contribute to repaying the housing loan.
She stated that she made monthly cash payments for the loan until it was fully repaid in 2013. She also believed her rightful share of the flat was at least 80 per cent.
Madam Ang died three days after signing the documents.
A year later, her younger son, Mr Koh You Quan, who was appointed the executor of her will, asked the High Court for a declaration that his father’s share of the flat was held in trust for Madam Ang’s estate.
But his mother’s assertions were contradicted by HDB records, which showed that the monthly repayments were deducted from his father’s Central Provident Fund (CPF) account, and that the loan was fully repaid in 1998.
In a judgment on Nov 11, Judicial Commissioner Mohamed Faizal said the fact that Madam Ang had misremembered the date by 15 years puts the credibility of her assertions in some doubt.
The judge also found it troubling that the available evidence contradicted her claim that she had made the monthly payments in cash.
He declined to grant the orders sought by Mr Koh, which included an order for his father, Mr Koh Hock Meng, to sell his share of the flat to the estate at market value.
The judge said there was insufficient evidence to support the existence of a trust, let alone to determine the legal and beneficial title of the flat.
He added: “I have some sympathy for the difficult situation the son finds himself in.”
