Owners Meeting (again) this Saturday 3pm

By now, most of you would have received yet another CBRE letter about another owners' meeting this Saturday. At such short notice, they are pulling out all stops to get you to sign the CSA as soon as possible, before the new Law kicks in. We find this strange as some of us have yet to receive the presentation slides from the first CBRE owners' meeting that was promised to everyone. When contacted, CBRE changed the story and said that they will give the slides out ONLY to owners who make the effort to contact them. I guess that's earning their $834,000+ fees for you.

They have invited Mr Gan Hiang Chye of Rajah & Tann back to address the following issues:

1. The Horizon Tower Case - What went wrong?


2. Understanding the Strata Title Board Application and avoiding its pitfalls?


3. The Amendment to the Land Titles (Strata) Act and its implication for ongoing Collective Sale.

If you don't know this, Mr Gan is a big gun in the en bloc business. Not only is he a partner with Rajah & Tann and no less, the lawyer handling our BGV en bloc, he also is the Deputy President of the Strata Titles Board! A man wearing these many hats is highly respectable and his advice will carry a lot of weight, especially if he can offer definitive answers to many concerns us owners have.

It surely must be expensive to invite him back - on a weekend no less - and we certainly hope our legal fees are not going up by the minute! Still, when you go for yet another owners' meeting (maybe they should just label the Function Room the "En Bloc Room"), do think about these:

1. So far, we've had Mr Jeremy Lake, Executive Director of CBRE and Mr Gan Hiang Chye, Deputy President of STB dropping by our humble home. Doesn't this speak very highly of our estate's super-prime value? Short of a Member of Parliament visiting to tell us how choice our location is, don't you think it's clear from their presence that there will be other boats to come by, as pointed out in the recent letter to owners?
   


2. The law firm and marketing agency are not paid the bulk of their fees unless the sale is successful. Will they be objective and fair in their representation of legal and en bloc matters? Would it not be more advisable to seek independent legal advice?
   


3. Is there a conflict of interest when a senior member of the STB, who on the one hand should be neutral, objective, and ideally not be involved in the sale process, has agreed to come to BGV to talk about vital concerns at the explicit request of the protem sales committee, who on the other hand is very obviously pushing hard to get owners to sign away their homes and investments?
   

Tags: Taman Serasi, Botanic Gardens View, Botanic Gardens Mansion, collective sales, condo, en bloc, en-bloc, en-bloc sale, enbloc, enbloc sale