Ms Sun Xueling
Blk 308B Punggol Walk
#01-364
Waterway Terraces 1
Singapore 822308
Dear Ms Sun,
Repeated Request 2
1. At your Meet-the-People Session of 7 Oct 2019, I was fourth in the queue and left at 9:52pm when your petition writer said you would send me a reply. On an important matter I was prepared to wait, hand over my letter Responsibilities of Member of Parliament and ask you for a reply.
2. At this juncture I will refer to the issue of the sale of the flat to include all the other issues in the letter. We had to sell the flat within six months after the purchase of the studio apartment. The downsized flat came with Silver Housing Bonus (SHB) for which an application had to be made.
I was not allowed to apply because officers would not give me the application form. An officer replied that I had purchased the studio apartment in my name and therefore not eligible for the bonus. I gathered that to be eligible the studio apartment had to be held in both our names. It would have to be in the names of myself and my mother who were the joint-owners of the five-room flat sold.
3. As a matter of fact, I would not have been allowed to purchase the five-room flat without my mother to form a family nucleus. But, after the sale of the flat, a cheque for the whole amount was made in my name with $5000 deducted for a deposit. The $5000 was shown as a deposit in the resale documents without it being clear what it was about. Much later an officer wrote that it was the fees for an option in the sale of the flat.
It was contrived. The agreement with the property agent stated that the sale could be concluded without an option. In our case the sale was concluded once payment was made at the resale office. And following procedure the cheque should have been made in our names as joint-owners of the flat.
Although the option was signed by us, we did not receive the $5000 and there was no receipt to show for it. What happened was after I had negotiated the price directly with the buyer without any mention of an option, the property agent of the buyer let us signed the option form without filling in the amount of option fees. No fee was received and the option form was not given to us as required.
The property agent whom I engaged with an exclusive contract did nothing. He did not brief me on the need of an option. He signed the option form as witness. He did not give me the sale agreement, which included an additional item on option fee received that I found out only after I requested for the sale agreement in an email after the sale was completed.
4. When I asked the officer why there wasn’t any refund to my CPF Account from the sale of our flat, the property agent who was with me said he knew of one similar case. When I wrote to his company to inquire about similar cases they came across, they did not reply. The 2012 CPF Act clearly stated there was to be no refund to its members unless through an application. We did not make such an application. Refund to CPF Account after sale of the flat was required because of withdrawal from CPF Account used in purchase of the flat. Without referring to the 2012 CPF Act, that much should be clear to its members.
5. With the sale of our flat and purchase of our studio apartment completed through HDB and the SHB approved by CPF subsequently, the purchase of additional CPF LIFE was made compulsory for me. Here another mistake was made. The Important Notes on CPF LIFE showed there was no need for additional CPF LIFE. The second and final deduction from Retirement Account to CPF LIFE would be two months before age 65.
Actually there were two additional CPF LIFE that I was asked to purchase to my detriment. The spreadsheets I submitted showed the rate of return of both additional CPF LIFE to be below the first purchase and below the estimated lower range of 3.75%. There were also two other mistakes made that I had mentioned on the subject.
6. I engaged the property agent out of some desperation. He was the third salesperson after I terminated the contract of two others. In all I talked to at least twenty other salespersons, some of whom brought in buyers to look at the flat. I sold on my own for a short period. The problem with the sale of the flat was part of a larger issue that started with noise from the neighbour and the flat was sold only after assistance from MP.
The property agent gave minimal attention. He did not advertise in the newspaper to sell the flat and went through the motions up till the time the flat was sold. I wrote to his company to reduce his fee from 2% to 1%. (1% being the normal fee without an exclusive contract.) The legal officer replied that they would take all necessary actions to recover the full fee. From the foregoing, were they entitled to the full fee?
7. In each of the processes mentioned above government officers had deviated from the rules:
a) Officers set up a situation where I committed my name to the studio apartment instead of our names to deprive us of SHB.
b) Officers took away $5000 from the sale of our flat for no apparent reason. There was no proof that we had received the $5000.
c) The 2012 CPF Act stated that refund to CPF Account was required unless members made an application stating the reason as listed in the Act. We did not made such an application.
d)The two additional CPF LIFE I was asked to purchase gave low rate of returns compared to the rate of return from the Retirement Account. The purchases did not conform to what was stated in the Important Notes on CPF LIFE.
e) The property agent and his company were negligent in their duties with respect to the $5000 deposit and refund to CPF Account. They colluded with the Resale Section of HDB to conceal and misrepresent the issues.
f) All issues started from the neighbour in 2007 although the noise from the working of a trade could be traced back to 1998. Then, I wrote to HDB Branch Office and sent a letter of appreciation to HDB Feedback Unit when the occupier was evicted. Not long after, officer facilitated the transfer of the flat to the neighbour who was to be the second owner to continue with their work. In 2010, I wrote to the Police that I suspected the-people-in-flat-across-the-neighbour were installed to protect the neighbour.
8. I send this email because I am still waiting for your reply whether you could bring up the problem in Parliament.
Yours Sincerely,
hh
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