Commentary: Condo en bloc rules are changing, and neighbours will feel it first

Halving the time a collective sale committee has to collect signatures shortens the campaign but does nothing to soften it, says NUS law professor Gabriel Kor.

File photo of private residences and HDB blocks in Singapore (Photo: CNA/Jeremy Long)

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SINGAPORE: A home owner had lived at her condominium for two years when her neighbours began asking her, almost every day, to sign the estate’s collective sale agreement. She gave in to the pressure despite the seller’s stamp duty she would face. Another home owner stopped going to the estate’s general meetings and avoided neighbours who wanted to sell.

But owners pushing for a sale had their reasons too, whether to leave an ageing development or to right-size. These competing needs are why a collective sale, or en bloc, can become a source of tension among neighbours, as media articles have shown over the years.

That tension is worth bearing in mind because the rules governing such sales are about to change.

Parliament on Tuesday (Sep 8) passed the Land Titles (Strata) (Amendment) Bill , which lowers the share of home owners who must agree to a collective sale in older estates – from the current 80 per cent to 70 per cent for estates aged 40 to 59 years, and 65 per cent for those aged 60 years or more. This is done to support the renewal of ageing developments .

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There are also stronger safeguards for owners who do not support a sale. At least 35 per cent of owners, counted by share value or by number of owners, will have to sign the request that calls the meeting to form a sale committee, up from 20 and 25 per cent today.

The signature collection period will be shortened from 12 to six months. An estate that fails the collective sale bid will have to wait three years, instead of two, before a reattempt, while the cap on the extra money a court may award en bloc objectors will double.

A SHORTER DEADLINE MAY NOT EASE THE PRESSURE

The Ministry of Law said the halving of the timeline to obtain signatures is aimed at addressing the “prolonged pressure” on owners who do not want to sell. Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Law Minister Edwin Tong said his ministry had received feedback about owners who refused to sign being named in social media and messaging chat groups, to pressure them into agreeing.

Pressure has two parts: how long it lasts and how hard it comes. The shorter deadline cuts the first but leaves the second alone.

Industry players have been reported as saying that a six-month signature collection period is "too short", especially for bigger projects. Addressing that, Mr Tong pointed to data that showed in developments of more than 100 units, most signatures are gathered in the first four months or within a concentrated window of one to two months. That is a fair answer to whether six months is workable. It is also a description of an intense campaign happening within a window the law is now shortening. Yet, nothing in the new rules touches the intensity.

A higher bar to start a campaign and a longer wait after a failed one may also mean fewer campaigns, but neither eases the pressure once one is under way.

WHAT NON-CONSENTING OWNERS CAN ACTUALLY SAY

Currently, the law lets the Strata Titles Boards and the court weigh only three things when they ask whether a sale was made in good faith: the price, the way the money is divided and any connection between the buyer and a home owner.

An objection succeeds only where home owners get back less than they paid for their units, or where the money will not clear their mortgage. The only loss the court can recognise is financial.

The courts have acknowledged the need to protect minority owners. Overturning the S$500 million en bloc sale of Horizon Towers in 2009, the Court of Appeal held that a sale committee acts for every owner in the estate and must hold an even hand between those who want to sell and those who do not. Objecting owners, it said, have to be “adequately protected from bullying and underhand tactics”.

Yet, the duty is tested only later when a dispute reaches a courtroom, and only where a home owner can afford to object. Nothing tells a committee on the first day what it may do at a home owner’s door.

TWO PROPOSALS TO CONSIDER

The government could consider writing a code of conduct for the signature campaign into the Act.

The law already regulates how sale committees behave in other respects, and a code could go further to establish boundaries around how owners are approached. For example, sale committees could be required to name one person to deal with each household, and that person would be the only one who reaches out. An owner who wants the asking to stop could say so in writing, and the approaches would end for the rest of the campaign.

The owner would continue receiving notices required by law, and could still change his or her mind. But the code means that a committee, or those working for it, that carried on regardless would have something to answer for.

Home owners could also be given more time to rescind their agreement. Those who sign a collective sale agreement now have five working days to withdraw consent, once only, by signing a notice and delivering it by hand to the appointed lawyer. The new laws passed on Tuesday do not change that, even as it halves the campaign.

The five days exist to make sure the owner's consent is informed and genuine, which was the government's reason for keeping them in 2010, when it turned down calls to scrap the cooling-off period altogether. A shorter campaign strengthens that case.

In tandem, the government could allow the signed forms to be posted. Hand delivery sorts owners by who can reach a law office before 5pm on a working day, and the owner who is overseas, elderly or on shift work is the one it stops.

NOT A TRIAL RUN FOR VERS

During the debate in parliament, several Members of Parliament (MPs) asked if changes to en bloc rules will have implications for the Voluntary Early Redevelopment Scheme (VERS) , which will allow owners of HDB flats aged 70 years or older to vote on whether the government can buy back their homes before the 99-year lease expires.

Speaking in parliament in September last year, National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat said his ministry is still working out how the VERS vote will run .

The latest changes should not be seen as a trial run for VERS, because the amendment Bill tabled expressly excludes any development on HDB land from the new class of collective sale it creates.

There are other differences. An HDB flat carries no share value, so consent would be counted differently. The Ministry of National Development (MND) has also said VERS should not create a “lottery effect” and payouts will be lower than under the Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme because flats offered VERS will have shorter remaining leases.

The government also holds one advantage no sale committee has. It can prepare replacement housing in advance and has said it will. That matters more than it sounds because a sale committee asks an owner for more than a price. It asks owners to trade a known home for a sum of money and a hope. The ones who say no most often cannot picture the other side of the move.

For all those differences, the similarity lies in what happens between neighbours. In his reply to MPs, Mr Tong said the issue of VERS goes beyond the scope of the Bill, but accepted there are learning points between the public and private markets and said his ministry would share its experience of the collective sale regime with MND.

As the rules are developed, the experience of private residential en bloc sales can offer a useful lesson. There is a need to support renewal efforts of ageing estates, but the process of seeking consensus and reaching a collective decision without dividing a community also matters.

Gabriel Kor is Associate Professor and Deputy Head (Academic) at the Department of the Built Environment, College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not represent the views and opinions of NUS.

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新加坡国立大学法学教授 Gabriel Kor 表示，将集体出售委员会收集签名的时间减半可以缩短运动时间，但并不能缓和运动的激烈程度。

新加坡私人住宅和组屋的资料照片（图片：CNA/Jeremy Long）

这段音频由人工智能工具生成。

新加坡：一位业主在公寓住了两年后，邻居们几乎每天都要求她签署小区集体出售协议。尽管要承担卖方的印花税，她最终还是屈服了。另一位业主则不再参加小区业主大会，并刻意回避那些想要卖房的邻居。

但业主们推动出售也有他们的理由，可能是为了搬离老旧的住宅区，也可能是为了缩小居住面积。正是这些相互冲突的需求，使得集体出售（或称整体出售）成为邻里间紧张关系的根源，正如多年来媒体报道所揭示的那样。

值得注意的是，这种紧张局势即将改变，因为此类销售的规则即将发生变化。

国会周二（9月8日）通过了《土地所有权（分层地契）（修正）法案》，该法案降低了老旧住宅区集体出售中必须同意的业主比例——对于房龄40至59年的住宅区，该比例从目前的80%降至70%；对于房龄60年及以上的住宅区，该比例降至65%。此举旨在支持老旧住宅区的更新改造。

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对于不支持出售的股东，也有更强有力的保障措施。至少需要35%的股东（按股份价值或股东人数计算）签署召开股东大会成立出售委员会的请求书，而目前的这一比例分别为20%和25%。

签名收集期将从12个月缩短至6个月。集体出售竞标失败的遗产管理人需等待三年而非两年才能再次尝试，同时法院可判给集体出售反对者的额外赔偿金上限将翻倍。

缩短期限未必能缓解压力

律政部表示，将签署期限缩短一半旨在缓解不愿出售房产的业主所面临的“长期压力”。律政部长唐振辉周二在国会发言时表示，律政部收到反馈，称一些拒绝签署的业主的名字被曝光在社交媒体和聊天群组中，以此向他们施压，迫使他们同意签署。

压力包含两个方面：持续时间和强度。缩短期限会减少持续时间，但不会改变强度。

据报道，业内人士表示，六个月的签名收集期“太短”，尤其对于大型项目而言。对此，童先生指出，数据显示，在超过100套单元的开发项目中，大部分签名是在前四个月或一到两个月的集中窗口期内收集的。这足以说明六个月的期限是否可行。这也描述了在法律如今缩短的窗口期内开展的密集型活动。然而，新规并未涉及这种高强度的征购活动。

发起竞选活动的门槛提高，失败后的等待时间延长，这或许意味着竞选活动会减少，但一旦竞选活动开始，这两种情况都无法减轻压力。

非同意业主究竟能说什么

目前，法律只允许分契式产权委员会和法院在询问交易是否出于善意时考虑三件事：价格、资金分配方式以及买方与房屋所有者之间的任何关系。

只有当房屋所有者收回的金额少于其购房款，或者收回的金额不足以偿还其抵押贷款时，反对意见才能成立。法院唯一认可的损失是经济损失。

法院已承认保护少数业主权益的必要性。2009年，上诉法院推翻了价值5亿新元的Horizo​​n Towers整体出售案，裁定出售委员会代表该物业所有业主的利益，必须在有意出售和不愿出售的业主之间保持公平。法院表示，反对出售的业主必须“得到充分保护，免受欺凌和不正当手段的侵害”。

然而，这项义务只有在纠纷闹上法庭，且房主有能力提出异议时，才会受到考验。委员会在第一天并不知道它会在房主家门口做出什么事。

两项提案供考虑

政府可以考虑将签名活动的行为准则写入该法案。

现行法律已对房屋出售委员会在其他方面的行为作出了规定，而一项新的准则可以进一步明确与业主接洽的方式。例如，可以要求房屋出售委员会指定一名负责人与每户业主接洽，且只有该负责人才能与业主联系。如果业主希望停止此类联系，可以书面提出，之后在整个出售过程中，此类联系都将停止。

业主仍会收到法律规定的通知，并且仍然可以改变主意。但法规规定，如果委员会或其工作人员无视法规继续行事，则必须承担责任。

业主们或许还能获得更多时间来撤销他们的协议。目前，签署集体出售协议的业主只有五个工作日的时间撤回同意，而且只有一次机会，只需签署一份通知并亲自递交给指定的律师即可。周二通过的新法律并没有改变这一点，尽管它将这场运动的规模缩减了一半。

设立这五天冷静期是为了确保业主在知情且真诚的情况下做出同意，这也是政府在2010年拒绝彻底取消冷静期的呼吁时保留这一规定的理由。缩短冷静期更强化了这一理由。

与此同时，政府可以允许邮寄已签署的表格。人工递送的方式会根据业主能否在工作日下午5点前到达律师事务所进行筛选，而身在海外、年老体弱或轮班工作的业主则会被拒收。

并非 Vers 的试运行

在议会辩论期间，几位国会议员询问，集体出售规则的变更是否会对自愿提前重建计划（VERS）产生影响。该计划允许70岁或以上的组屋业主投票决定政府是否可以在99年租约到期前回购他们的房屋。

去年9月，国家发展部长徐芳达在国会发言时表示，他的部门仍在研究VERS投票将如何进行。

最新的变化不应被视为 VERS 的试运行，因为提交的修正案明确规定，在组屋土地上的任何开发项目都不应纳入其所创建的新类别集体出售范围。

还有其他区别。组屋不具有股份价值，因此同意的计算方式也不同。国家发展部也表示，VERS不应造成“彩票效应”，而且由于VERS提供的组屋剩余地契较短，其支付金额将低于选择性整体重建计划。

政府还拥有一项任何房屋出售委员会都不具备的优势：它可以提前准备好替代住房，并且已经表示会这样做。这一点比听起来更重要，因为房屋出售委员会向业主索要的不仅仅是价格。它要求业主用一套熟悉的房屋换取一笔钱和一份希望。那些拒绝的人往往无法想象搬迁后的生活。

尽管存在诸多差异，但相似之处在于邻里之间发生的事情。唐先生在答复议员时表示，VERS（集体出售计划）的问题超出了该法案的范围，但他承认公共市场和私人市场之间存在学习共赢之处，并表示他的部门将与国家发展部分享其在集体出售制度方面的经验。

在制定相关规则的过程中，私人住宅整体出售的经验可以提供有益的借鉴。虽然有必要支持老旧住宅区的更新改造，但寻求共识、达成集体决策而不造成社区分裂的过程也至关重要。

Gabriel Kor是新加坡国立大学（NUS）设计与工程学院建筑环境系副教授兼副系主任（学术事务）。文中观点仅代表作者个人意见，并不代表新加坡国立大学的立场。

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