As you will recall, we have continually urged the members of the former and would-be-in-future members of the Sale Committee to be careful in their dissemination of notice of events related to their en-bloc attempt. Their inability to ensure that all owners are kept informed has resulted in the postponement of the EOGM that was called for 1 Dec 2007. One of our fellow owners was not given any notice of the EOGM and consequently and quite reasonably objected to this breach of owners' rights.
We are informed that despite the necessary postponement of the EOGM, Mr John Lee, a would-be Sale Committee member, continued to tout the virtues of an en-bloc sale, insisting that a "good price" could be achieved. However, according to newspaper report dated 18 December 2007 “No takers for many collective sale sites as market cools”, most collective sale sites put up for tender have closed without any bids as developers have become more cautious about buying new sites and developers have also already acquired quite a lot of sites. We are wondering what sort of “good price” he was hoping to achieve for Botanic Gardens View, when developers have begun to signal the cooling of the property market. In fact, a recent Business Times reported on 3 January 2008 stated that CBRE themselves expect luxury prices to moderate rather than increase. Surely this will have an impact on developers' keenness on BGV as they will almost certainly buy our estate to develop into luxury homes.
Given the recent cooling down of the property market, especially at the high end, is there any point in going en-bloc for Botanic Gardens View now and putting residents and owners through the stress and duress again?
Mr Lee also made a number of unfounded assertions about the owners who oppose an attempt to sell en-bloc, including, most relevantly, that we are only 10% of the owners. We would be very interested to know how he comes by this figure. You will remember that before the new amendments to the en-bloc regulations came into force, the then- Sale Committee could not, despite all manner of scare mongering, promises and exhortations (all equally empty), persuade more than half of the owners to agree in principle to attempt an en-bloc sale. And the number of people who supported holding the EOGM (and actually bothered to attend) is significantly less than that. So why should he think that 90% of us have been so blinded by his pitch that we are willing to subsume our interests to his?
Mr Lee is professionally involved in property development. We do not deny his right to seek profit wherever he may find it. We do deny that we are obliged to sacrifice our interests for the sake of his profit. However "good" a price the owners might achieve in an en-bloc sale (from whom? we have no indication of a potential buyer or how the proceeds will be divided among apartments of different size), Mr Lee and his cohorts have never given a satisfactory answer to the basic concern of the majority: where will we live once we are driven out of Botanic Gardens View? Most of us, unlike some members of the would-be Sale Committee, are not rich enough to own more than one home. We would like to keep the one we have. A "good price" will gain us nothing (and in this current market, it will buy less and less by the time it comes into the hands of sellers). Is there a price that will buy us this location again, with all its advantages? Is there any other plot of land in Singapore that is next to the Botanic Gardens, five minutes from Orchard Road, within walking distance of shopping centres and a major hospital and has apartments that are freehold, large and above all, affordable to us? All Mr Lee's evasions and circumlocutions cannot hide the fact that the answer is "No". We appreciate this fact and we think our fellow majority members appreciate it as well.
So you will understand that until we see the names and the signatures, we are exceedingly sceptical of the claim that only 10% of the owners oppose an attempted en-bloc sale. We suggest that our fellow-owners should be too.
As it stands, we owners and residents have a number of issues that we should think most carefully about before rushing head long into another enbloc for BGV, especially in view of the coming EOGM on 12 January 2008.
Vanessa Chan
c/o Ms Sim Bock Eng, Wong Partnership, One George Street
Blk 9, #10-09, Botanic Gardens View
Wong Hwei Ming
things.unfair@gmail.com
Blk 9, #09-17, Botanic Gardens View
or BGV blog email: enbloc_bgv@hotmail.com
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1 comment:
Last year in August he said that we will miss the peak if the owners don't sell immediately at that time - so now how? I heard many other estates can't even get bids these last few months. He says can get a "good price" now? How - by magic? Or maybe he is trying to unload his "office" unit at whatever price he can get which is "good" for him, whether it is good for other people or not, & take whatever profits then go and do another en bloc somewhere else?
If his money stuck in this unit, he can always sell on open market right now, since he said he can get a "good price", whatever that means to him. Other people value their HOMES more.
Maybe his unit or this estate not good enough for him to live in, since he lives in a bungalow nearby. Not a good neighbour, trying to force people to sell their homes, all because of worshipping the God of Money. There are old people and families who need to live here.
He suggested in one letter that we can move out to outlying areas (Ponggol, Woodlands or Sengkang, is it?) and use the "good transport system" of Singapore to come back and use the Botanic gardens. This is TOO MUCH! Is it only rich people like him who are allowed to live near the Botanic gardens?
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