Saga Of Mitre Hotel Site Ends After 12 Years

Source : The Straits Times, Feb 2, 2008

AFTER dragging on for 12 years, the legal battle over a rundown hotel sitting on millions of dollars worth of prime downtown real estate has ended.

Singapore's highest court yesterday ordered the land on which the Mitre Hotel sits to be sold and its occupants cleared out.

Some experts estimate that the plot could fetch $200 million, although the actual valuation has been ordered by a judge to be kept confidential.

The decision ends a long-running battle between the land owners, the bulk of whom want to sell the property.

The only owners resisting the sale are Mr Chiam Heng Hsien and Mitre Hotel Proprietors, the partnership that runs the hotel. Each has a 10 per cent stake in the land.

For more than 50 years, the hotel proprietors paid rent of about $660 a month to the land owners.

Mr Chiam, 62, went to the Court of Appeal to overturn an earlier lower court decision that ordered the site of the dilapidated, two-storey hotel to be sold.

But the three-judge panel rejected his appeal yesterday.

The hotel, which opened in 1948, stopped letting rooms when it lost its licence in 2002. But it continued to operate its bar.

The colonial-era building sits on a prime 40,000 sq ft lot in Killiney Road, against the backdrop of high-rise condominiums and office buildings.

When The Straits Times visited the site yesterday, the hotel looked abandoned. A distinct smell of urine wafted over the covered driveway leading to the lobby entrance.

The legal tussle over the land began in 1996, when Mr Chiam fought off a move by his cousin Heng Luan to sell the property.

Mr Chiam, who is the managing partner of the hotel, continued staying at the building.

The case went back to court in 2006. Mr Chiam argued that an agreement in 1948 allowed the hotel proprietors to stay on the property for as long as they wished.

In April last year, the High Court ruled against him.

Justice Judith Prakash ordered the property sold via public tender and the occupants to clear out.

She decided that the hotel partners are not entitled to compensation for being evicted, beyond the proceeds from the sale.

Mr Chiam and the hotel proprietors were ordered to pay the legal costs of the other parties.

The Court of Appeal yesterday upheld most of those decisions. But it ordered the costs of the legal battle to be paid out from the proceeds of the sale.