\n<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE \u2013 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).<\/p>\n
The landlord was ordered to pay the nurse $1,536.47, including an $800 security deposit that she had withheld.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In grounds of decision released on July 7, the magistrate criticised what he described as the landlord\u2019s \u201cairy disregard\u201d for court dates, and said her conduct reflected \u201ca conspicuous lack of respect for the judicial process\u201d.<\/p>\n
The names of the nurse and landlord were redacted in the judgment.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
She shared the flat with another Malaysian nurse, who was also her friend. Each occupied a common bedroom, while the landlord\u2019s daughter and her husband occupied the master bedroom.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
This differed from the usual arrangement in room rental agreements, which typically restrict air-conditioning use to the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a practical arrangement that made good sense for someone who needed to sleep during the day after a night shift,\u201d the magistrate wrote.<\/p>\n
Trouble began after the landlord\u2019s daughter became unhappy with the arrangement.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The daughter also frequently harassed the tenants by shouting at them in common areas and disrupting their sleep by switching off the air-conditioner\u2019s main power supply.<\/p>\n
The interruptions were disruptive when the nurses were trying to rest after overnight shifts.<\/p>\n
The dispute reached a breaking point on Nov 1, 2024, when there was a heated discussion between the nurses and the daughter.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
If they refused to choose, the daughter threatened to \u201charass them daily until they did\u201d, the judgment said.<\/p>\n
The nurses informed the landlord that they would leave by the end of November 2024.<\/p>\n
After they moved out, the landlord withheld both tenants\u2019 $800 security deposits, prompting separate claims in the SCT.<\/p>\n
The nurse\u2019s friend succeeded in an earlier claim to recover her deposit.<\/p>\n
In that case, the landlord counterclaimed for alleged damage to a bedframe, claiming the tenant was \u201cvery big and heavy and plump\u201d and estimating that she weighed about 150kg.<\/p>\n
The magistrate rejected the claim, saying the description and estimate were \u201cgrossly inaccurate\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The landlord failed to attend the first trial date in August 2025, claiming she had fractured her leg.<\/p>\n
Although the medical certificate she submitted did not meet court requirements, the magistrate nevertheless adjourned the hearing to give her another opportunity to attend.<\/p>\n
She again failed to appear on Sept 30, 2025.<\/p>\n
After hearing evidence from the nurse and her witness, the tribunal decided in the nurse\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The magistrate rejected those arguments.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He also found she had been physically capable of participating in court proceedings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was more likely than not that she was physically able to attend the trial… but chose not to,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe irresistible inference was that the (landlord) was selective in her attendance of judicial proceedings \u2013 present when it suited her, and absent when it did not.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cSuch conduct could not be countenanced.\u201d<\/p>\n
The magistrate also rejected the landlord\u2019s explanation that she did not know how to obtain a medical certificate excusing her from court attendance.<\/p>\n
When asked why she had not done so, she told the tribunal: \u201cEvery time I do not know how to tell the doctor this. It is just an MC issued by a doctor and I don\u2019t know how to say that I was unable to walk. I don\u2019t know how to tell the doctor that I was required to attend court proceedings. I don\u2019t know everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The magistrate found the explanation \u201crings hollow\u201d, noting that she had been able to explain exactly those points during the hearing.<\/p>\n
He noted: \u201cIf she could articulate those very things before the tribunal, there was no reason why she could not have said the same to her doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the merits of the dispute, the magistrate found none of the landlord\u2019s reasons for keeping the security deposit justified withholding it.<\/p>\n
The landlord had alleged that the nurse improperly brought her boyfriend to the room and had committed immoral acts \u201cby engaging in private activities, e,g. [sic] sexual intimacy, behind closed doors with an [sic] young male visitor\u201d.<\/p>\n
She also said the nurse exceeded her air-conditioning allowance and terminated the tenancy early.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He also rejected the argument that higher electricity bills justified keeping the deposit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe (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 \u2013 and it cut both ways,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bad bargain is not a basis for forfeiture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dismissing the landlord\u2019s application to set aside the judgment, the magistrate said the tribunal should be \u201cmost reluctant\u201d to do so where a party deliberately chose not to attend court.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s deliberate absence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe (landlord\u2019s) absence at the trial\u2026 was deliberate and calculated,\u201d he said. \u201cNeither her MCs nor her physical state excused it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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SINGAPORE \u2013 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}