SINGAPORE – A woman’s attempt to sell a condominium unit that had been purchased in trust for her son, who was six years old at the time, has been rejected by a High Court judge, who said he was “not at all comfortable” to approve the sale.
Ms Cheryl Tan, who bought the property in 2019 for $1.8 million, applied to the court to approve its sale because a buyer was now willing to pay her $2.28 million for it.
In a judgment on Oct 31, Justice Choo Han Teck noted that Ms Tan wanted to liquidate the trust simply because the value of the property had increased.
“That being the only reason for the sale is sufficient grounds to dismiss her application. A trustee’s duty is to protect the trust assets and not deal with it, unless specifically empowered by the trust to do so, as if it were investment capital,” said the judge.
Ms Tan’s failure to disclose her husband’s 2016 death and a series of legal proceedings added to the “furtive nature” of her application, he said.
The proceedings included two lawsuits she brought against insurance companies – one of which she lost because her husband had failed to disclose that he had life policies with seven insurers totalling $6.25 million.
Justice Choo said that the court must be satisfied that the trust was not created as a means to evade the additional buyers’ stamp duty.
Ms Tan was therefore obliged to fully disclose her assets and liabilities, and, had her husband been alive, whether the trust had been created to protect their assets from their creditors.
Both Ms Tan and her late husband, who was not named in the judgment, had worked as insurance agents at AIA Singapore.
