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SINGAPORE \u2013 Lim Bee Huat, the founder of foodcourt chain Kopitiam, has sued a contractor for abandoning the construction on two adjacent houses in Whitley Road, leaving behind incomplete and defective works.<\/p>\n
Lim is seeking damages for the cost to complete the construction and rectify the defects, which has been assessed by an independent expert at nearly $456,000.<\/p>\n
The businessman is also seeking damages for loss of use of the property from mid-2022 onwards, at a monthly rental rate of more than $21,000.<\/p>\n
The defendant, Tiandi ACMV Engineering, denied that it is liable for the purported defects, and contended that it had finished the works it was contracted to complete.<\/p>\n
The firm asserted that it was not involved in the works which resulted in the \u201cFrankenstein house\u201d.<\/p>\n
It alleged that these works were later carried out with the intention to illegally increase the gross floor area.<\/p>\n
Tiandi has counterclaimed against Lim for an outstanding sum of $1.14 million due under the $3.5 million contract.<\/p>\n
A trial for the High Court suit began on Sept 14 and is scheduled to run till Oct 15.<\/p>\n
Lim famously began cleaning tables at coffee shops for $1 a night<\/span><\/a> when he was nine years old, before he set up his first stall at the old Esplanade grounds at the age of 18.<\/p>\n He grew Kopitiam into a network of more than 80 outlets across Singapore before the business was sold to NTUC Enterprise in 2018<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n The current dispute revolves around the building and construction works at his Whitley Road property in the prime District 11.<\/p>\n According to court documents, the 634.4 sq m property is made up of two adjacent parcels of land.<\/p>\n Lim initially owned one parcel, on which sits an existing house. He acquired the second parcel in early 2012. His plan was to build a new house to replace the existing one, and a second house on the other parcel of land.<\/p>\n In 2014, his employee, Per Poh Huat, recommended Pek Han Kok to be the contractor for the project.<\/p>\n Pek was the owner of Tiandi as well as a company called Future Innovation & Construction.<\/p>\n Lim engaged Future Innovation to carry out the works, which began in April 2016.<\/p>\n In 2017, Tiandi took over as the contractor for the project. The completion date under the contract was June 7, 2019.<\/p>\n In January 2019, Lim and his family moved into the first house, but the second house was never occupied.<\/p>\n The temporary occupation permit was issued in August 2019, but the works remained incomplete, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cTiandi remained on site and continued carrying out works in (both houses),\u201d stated Lim\u2019s opening statement.<\/p>\n The certificate of statutory completion was issued in September 2020.<\/p>\n In May 2021, Lim discovered that the works had been \u201cabandoned\u201d, and wrote to Pek to demand that the works be completed and rectified.<\/p>\n He and his family moved out in mid-2022. Since then, both houses have been unoccupied.<\/p>\n Lim, who is represented by Ng Kim Beng from Rajah & Tann, contended that Tiandi was in breach of contract by failing to complete the works and rectify the defective works.<\/p>\n The businessman added that Tiandi was the only party he contracted to carry out the works in the project.<\/p>\n He also asserted that Tiandi\u2019s counterclaim should be dismissed.<\/p>\n Lim said he had paid, through his employee Per, at least $6.4 million, which exceeded the contract sum.<\/p>\n Tiandi, which is represented by Alfred Lim of Meritus Law, contended that there were two phases of construction works.<\/p>\n The company said it completed the first phase, which was approved by the authorities, with multiple structural and architectural drawings submitted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe second phase was not carried out by Tiandi. The second phase was carried out illegally. There were no drawings approved by the authorities,\u201d said the defendant\u2019s opening statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 Lim Bee Huat, the founder of foodcourt chain Kopitiam, has sued a contractor for abandoning the construction on two adjacent houses in Whitley…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75257,"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-85215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85215","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=85215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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