After a tormenting two years en bloc legal pursuit, the highest court, the Court of Appeal finally gave its verdict on Horizon Towers, the 199 unit condominium lying on Leonie Hill. The enbloc sales was halted, a judgment that surprised many owners.
The judgement based mostly on the sales committee established for the enbloc by Horizon Towers not performing its fiduciary duties as it’s suppose to. I think the deciding blow was on two owners who bought additional units before being appointed to the sales committee.
SINGAPORE: A group of homeowners has finally won the fight to keep their condominiums, ending a two-year legal saga.
In an unprecedented move, the Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of owners who objected to the S$500 million en bloc sale of Horizon Towers.
The Leonie Road condominium was to have been sold in 2007 to Hotel Properties and its partners.
Had the en bloc sale gone through, owners of its 199 units would have earned S$2.3 million each, while 11 penthouse owners would have received about S$4 million each.
This is a ugly case of enbloc which got blown out of proportion that coughed up much legal costs along the way. Again, that would means more transparency in the future as people would be using this case to benchmark on the type of treatments they could get from the law.
For owners of Horizon Towers, it’s a 50/50 case in benefits as we do see a climb in land pricing with its next door neighbour Leonie Hill Residences (2005) by Tiong Aik with recent transactions hover the 1,800psf mark (freehold). Horizon Towers is a 99 year leasehold apartment which should command about 800psf at this current market rate. HPL and partner’s plan of 253-unit condo and eight detached houses on the site effectively was halted by the decisions from the Supreme Court.
Again that would call for another round of en-bloc, which I’m not sure whether any developers are willing to take the bite with the tarnished reputation the sales commitee have left in the near future. Horizon Towers definitely had a good deal in the climbing 2007 market from Hotel Properties.
It’s amazing also with 1.5 million incurred in legal costs, they could have done something better with the money.