Tenant wins court award in air-con row with HDB landlord

SINGAPORE – A night-shift nurse who rented a room in an HDB flat won a claim against her landlord after a dispute over daytime air-conditioning use escalated into harassment, an early termination of the tenancy and, eventually, the Small Claims Tribunals (SCT).

The landlord was ordered to pay the nurse $1,536.47, including an $800 security deposit that she had withheld.

The landlord later tried to set aside the judgment after repeatedly failing to attend court hearings, but Tribunal Magistrate Leon Abraham Tan dismissed the application, finding that she had deliberately stayed away despite being given multiple opportunities to appear.

In grounds of decision released on July 7, the magistrate criticised what he described as the landlord’s “airy disregard” for court dates, and said her conduct reflected “a conspicuous lack of respect for the judicial process”.

The names of the nurse and landlord were redacted in the judgment.

The dispute arose after the Malaysian nurse rented a common bedroom in the five-room HDB flat from September 2024 under a one-year tenancy agreement.

She shared the flat with another Malaysian nurse, who was also her friend. Each occupied a common bedroom, while the landlord’s daughter and her husband occupied the master bedroom.

Because both nurses worked rotating night shifts at a public hospital, they negotiated a term in their tenancy agreements that allowed them to use the air-conditioner for up to eight hours a day regardless of the time of day.

This differed from the usual arrangement in room rental agreements, which typically restrict air-conditioning use to the night.

“It was a practical arrangement that made good sense for someone who needed to sleep during the day after a night shift,” the magistrate wrote.

Trouble began after the landlord’s daughter became unhappy with the arrangement.

According to the judgment, the daughter complained that although each tenant stayed within her individual eight-hour daily limit, they worked different shifts. As a result, the air-conditioning compressor sometimes ran for up to 16 hours a day because one nurse was sleeping during the day while the other slept at night.

The daughter also frequently harassed the tenants by shouting at them in common areas and disrupting their sleep by switching off the air-conditioner’s main power supply.

The interruptions were disruptive when the nurses were trying to rest after overnight shifts.

Breaking point

The dispute reached a breaking point on Nov 1, 2024, when there was a heated discussion between the nurses and the daughter.

The daughter then presented the tenants with three options: They could increase their monthly rent from $800 to $1,000 and continue using the air-conditioner during the day, keep paying $800 but use the air-conditioner only between 11pm and 7am, or move out.

If they refused to choose, the daughter threatened to “harass them daily until they did”, the judgment said.

The nurses informed the landlord that they would leave by the end of November 2024.

After they moved out, the landlord withheld both tenants’ $800 security deposits, prompting separate claims in the SCT.

The nurse’s friend succeeded in an earlier claim to recover her deposit.

In that case, the landlord counterclaimed for alleged damage to a bedframe, claiming the tenant was “very big and heavy and plump” and estimating that she weighed about 150kg.

The magistrate rejected the claim, saying the description and estimate were “grossly inaccurate”.

The present case became unusual because of what happened after the nurse filed her claim. Both the nurse and the landlord represented themselves at the tribunal.

The landlord failed to attend the first trial date in August 2025, claiming she had fractured her leg.

Although the medical certificate she submitted did not meet court requirements, the magistrate nevertheless adjourned the hearing to give her another opportunity to attend.

She again failed to appear on Sept 30, 2025.

After hearing evidence from the nurse and her witness, the tribunal decided in the nurse’s favour.

But a week later, the landlord applied to have the judgment set aside, saying she had broken bones, was unable to walk and had unsuccessfully requested that the hearing be conducted over Zoom.

The magistrate rejected those arguments.

He found that the landlord knew about the hearing date, had repeatedly been told what type of medical certificate was required to excuse attendance, and had failed to produce one.

He also found she had been physically capable of participating in court proceedings.

“It was more likely than not that she was physically able to attend the trial… but chose not to,” he wrote.

“The irresistible inference was that the (landlord) was selective in her attendance of judicial proceedings – present when it suited her, and absent when it did not.”

He added: “Such conduct could not be countenanced.”

The magistrate also rejected the landlord’s explanation that she did not know how to obtain a medical certificate excusing her from court attendance.

When asked why she had not done so, she told the tribunal: “Every time I do not know how to tell the doctor this. It is just an MC issued by a doctor and I don’t know how to say that I was unable to walk. I don’t know how to tell the doctor that I was required to attend court proceedings. I don’t know everything.”

The magistrate found the explanation “rings hollow”, noting that she had been able to explain exactly those points during the hearing.

He noted: “If she could articulate those very things before the tribunal, there was no reason why she could not have said the same to her doctor.”

Landlord has no reason withholding security deposit: Magistrate

On the merits of the dispute, the magistrate found none of the landlord’s reasons for keeping the security deposit justified withholding it.

The landlord had alleged that the nurse improperly brought her boyfriend to the room and had committed immoral acts “by engaging in private activities, e,g. [sic] sexual intimacy, behind closed doors with an [sic] young male visitor”.

She also said the nurse exceeded her air-conditioning allowance and terminated the tenancy early.

The magistrate found there was no contractual requirement for the tenant to seek permission before having visitors, no evidence that she had exceeded the agreed air-conditioning limit, and no clause allowing the landlord to forfeit the deposit because the tenancy ended early.

He also rejected the argument that higher electricity bills justified keeping the deposit.

“The (landlord) bore the risk of any fluctuation in the bills as part of the fixed monthly rent of $800. That was the bargain she struck – and it cut both ways,” he wrote.

“If electricity usage or prices fell and the bills decreased, the (landlord) would have been the beneficiary. She could not therefore look to the security deposit when the arrangement did not suit her.

“A bad bargain is not a basis for forfeiture.”

Dismissing the landlord’s application to set aside the judgment, the magistrate said the tribunal should be “most reluctant” to do so where a party deliberately chose not to attend court.

He added that requiring the nurse and her witness to testify all over again would be unfair, particularly when the claim concerned a relatively modest sum and the need for a retrial arose solely because of the landlord’s deliberate absence.

“The (landlord’s) absence at the trial… was deliberate and calculated,” he said. “Neither her MCs nor her physical state excused it.”

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