Hozion Towers Saga - Buyers Not Allowed To Participate In Strata Titles Board Hearing

Source : The Business Times, October 23, 2007

Buyers of Horizon Towers - the subject of a high profile en bloc dispute - will not be allowed to participate in the hearing by the Strata Titles Board (STB).

The buyers - Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL) and its partners - had expressed their interest to be made parties to STB's hearing tentatively scheduled for Oct 30 and the first three weeks of November.

The board allowed lawyers for the majority and minority owners to comment on HPL's application last week, and denied the application yesterday.

The hearing will be a resumption of the previous hearing which ended on Aug 3, when the board threw out Horizon Towers' application on the basis that it was defective because of three missing pages.

But the High Court ruled earlier this month that STB was wrong to dismiss the application. This is because it was not a substantial omission that prejudiced the minority owners.

This means that STB will continue hearing the application from where it left off, including the objections to be made by the minority owners, and the merits of the case, before deciding whether to allow the collective sale.

In the previous STB hearing, HPL and its partners represented by Allen & Gledhill were not allowed to participate.

The saga began in February when HPL and its partners agreed to buy the Leonie Hill development for $500 million.

But the deal turned sour when several owners were said to be unhappy with the sale price, after neighbouring developments started going for much more.

HPL and its partners have accused the owners of not doing their best to ensure that a proper application was filed to the STB and is looking to sue them for up to $1 billion if the sale does not go through.