En-Bloc Sales: What Happened To Fair Treatment And Rights Of Minorities?

Source : The Straits Times, 10 Aug 2007

I READ the letter, ‘Govt should intervene in property market’ (ST, 8 Aug), and it strikes a chord.

I am also one of the thousands who are being turned out of our homes because of the en-bloc frenzy.

Being forced to seek legal advice, we were told that the only protection that we have by law is that we will minimally get what we paid for our home 10 years ago without bank interest.

We have spent weeks searching for a new home in frustration and realised that we too can only downgrade or move to the very borders of Singapore.

Many of us own a home. If someone walks in through your door today and demands that you exchange your home in Central location with his in Choa Chu Kang, how would you feel?

If someone demands that you sell your house at the price you paid for 10 years ago without bank interest for the mortgage that you have arduously serviced over the years, what would you do?

You can throw the person out the door. Yet, this is exactly what some minority owners in en-bloc sales are forced to accept, without choice.

It is ironical that, as a Singaporean who has worked hard to own our home in this land, I am made to ponder the prospect of losing our home and wonder, in the name of facilitating en-bloc sales and supposed progress of the nation, what has happened to fair treatment and the rights of individual Singaporeans?

Jane Ee (Ms)