Source : Sunday Times - 5 Apr 2009
When a group of Horizon Towers owners came together more than three years ago to discuss selling their estate en bloc, they had no way of knowing that they would end up among the biggest losers in the whole deal.
Owners Arjun Samtani, Wee Hian Siew, Henry Lim and Tan Kah Gee mooted a collective sale in October 2005 and kicked off the process. All four were eventually appointed to the sale committee, with Mr Samtani as chairman and Mr Wee as secretary.
By July 2006, they had launched the sale, formed a sale committee, appointed a marketing agent and obtained the necessary 80 per cent consensus from their neighbours for the sale.
But what the other owners did not know was that Mr Samtani and Mr Tan had bought extra units of Horizon Towers just a few months previously, relying on bank loans to do so, according to the Court of Appeal.
If the collective sale had gone through, each of the 199 owners of the 99-year leasehold condominium would have received about $2.3 million and the 11 penthouse owners, at least $4 million.
Now that the sale has failed, the owners who had wanted to sell their units are stuck with them in a plummeting property market. Some had even gone ahead and bought a second home on the assumption that the sale would succeed.
Mr Samtani and Mr Tan, with their extra financing burdens, are probably among the worst off.
The other owners are also said to be considering the option of suing them and the other members of the original sale committee for breach of duty.
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