Youngest sibling wins suit against eldest over mum’s estate

SINGAPORE – A businessman’s eldest son, who was successfully sued by one of his brothers over the three firms the family owned a decade ago, has recently lost a lawsuit brought by another sibling.

Lim Sze Eng, 72, the eldest of eight children, was sued by his youngest sibling Lin Tze Kin, 61, over their mother’s estate.

The brothers’ respective wives – Tan Lay Hoon, 73, and Tan Yen Lin, 59 – were also parties in the case alongside their husbands.

The dispute concerned the family home, a property in Eunos valued at $9 million. It was solely owned by their mother after their father’s death in 1992.

The other siblings have moved out but Sze Eng continues to live there with his wife, children and grandchildren.

In 2008, Sze Eng took their mother, Tan Ah Kar, to a lawyer’s office, where she signed a document to transfer 50 per cent of the house to him and his wife.

In 2012, the matriarch willed her remaining half-share of the house to Tze Kin and his two sons.

After her death in 2023, Sze Eng demanded that Tze Kin transfer their mother’s half-share of the house to him.

Sze Eng claimed that he and his wife bought the entire property for $570,000 in 1992.

This led Tze Kin and his wife to file a lawsuit to assert a claim on the matriarch’s half-share of the house, as well as her share of proceeds from two shop units at Far East Plaza that were kept by Sze Eng.

In a written judgment on June 16, High Court judge Audrey Lim rejected Sze Eng’s claim that he and his wife had agreed to buy over the house.

The judge said: “There is no documentary evidence to support the existence of the agreement or that the defendants paid, out of their own monies, $570,000 for the property pursuant to the purported agreement.”

The judge also concluded that the defendants had fabricated the story of how they purportedly raised the money to buy the house.

According to Sze Eng, his mother was worried that the house, which was put up as collateral for an overdraft facility, would be force-sold because she could not make the monthly interest payments.

He said he and his wife paid $570,000 to discharge the loan, and that they had sold two properties in Taiwan to raise the funds.

Sze Eng said there was no written record of the agreement, as there was a “close bond” between him and his mother.

He presented two cheque deposit slips in court, but the judge said these did not show the account from which the cheques were drawn.

There was also no evidence that the Taiwan properties were sold in 1993, she added.

Sze Eng claimed that due to the passing of time, he did not have the bank statements to show that the funds came from him or the sales agreement for the Taiwan properties.

The judge did not believe him, pointing out that he had kept other documents going back to 1993.

She added that for more than 14 years after they purportedly paid for the house, the defendants took no steps to transfer any share of the property to themselves.

The judge agreed with the claimants’ lawyer, Ms Woo Shu Yan from Drew & Napier, that this was because there was no such agreement.

During the trial, the claimants submitted video recordings of the matriarch’s conversations with two of her daughters between 2010 and 2022.

In one recording, she said she had transferred half of the property to Sze Eng to fulfil her husband’s wishes, and that if she did not sign it over to her son, he would make her life “miserable”.

In her will, the matriarch wanted her half-share of the house to be sold, with Tze Kin to get 60 per cent of the proceeds and his two sons to each get 20 per cent.

She bequeathed the rest of her assets to her eight children in equal shares.

The judge ordered the house to be sold, and granted Sze Eng and his wife the right of first option to buy over the matriarch’s half-share.

She said it would not be fair to Tze Kin’s family if the property was not sold and Sze Eng’s family continued to live there.

On the other hand, Sze Eng’s family could buy another property from their share of the proceeds.

She ordered the proceeds to be divided equally between the claimants and the defendants.

A portion of the claimants’ share, tentatively set at about $305,000, would go to the defendants as reimbursement for the money Sze Eng spent on improvement works.

As for the Far East Plaza units, the judge ruled that the matriarch held a 10.67 per cent stake in these properties, which were sold for $3.78 million in 2007.

The judge ordered Sze Eng to pay the estate 10.67 per cent of the net sale proceeds and to account for the matriarch’s share of rent from July 2004 onwards.

The judge also dismissed Sze Eng’s counterclaim for a sum of $1.5 million, which he alleged he had entrusted to his mother for safekeeping.

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