An American man living in Singapore refused to pay rent for a semi-detached property he rented in Kembangan, yet sued its elderly owners when they attempted to re-enter the house.
According to a judgement from Oct 5, the applications made by Anthony Thomas Price were dismissed by District Judge Chiah Kok Khun who said he had “devised a deliberate scheme” to rent the home without intending to pay rent.
The tenancy agreement was made by Price using a Singapore-incorporated private company with paid-up capital of only $200, with himself and his family as directors.
The company was also the applicant of the claim.
Chiah argued that Price had a pattern of “using shell companies to rent landed properties in Singapore for his family to stay and not paying rent” and embroiling defendants in litigation “in a bid to extend his period of unlawful occupation” of the homes he rented.
“In my view, the claimant’s applications are filed in plain abuse of process of the court,” he added.
The counterclaim the elderly homeowners in their 80s made against Price was also allowed.
‘Plain breach’ of tenancy agreement
According to the judgement, a tenancy agreement was signed in April for two years, from May 1, 2026 to April 30, 2028, with rent of $7,500 to be paid on the first day of each month.
If rent remained unpaid for seven days, an interest rate of 10 per cent per annum applied, calculated from the due date to the date of actual payment.
Price had only paid rent for the first month.
Thus, the district judge concluded that Price was in “clear breach of the tenancy agreement … in refusing to pay rent”.
This also gave the defendants, the elderly homeowners, the “rights of re-entry” to take back their property.
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