S'pore man ordered to pay S$600,000 share to 2 brothers left out of mother's will

When a mother in Singapore passed away, her will bequeathed her estate to two sons and two granddaughters, leaving two of her other sons out of her inheritance.

After the brothers' relations grew strained due to their exclusion from the inheritance, their uncle proposed that the sons included in the will use the proceeds of a property sale left by their mother to give S$300,000 to each of the brothers.

Though they signed a handwritten agreement, and sold the property — a semi-detached house at Eng Kong Road — for S$5 million, one of the sons included in the will refused to allow the sum of S$600,000 to be withdrawn and distributed to his other two brothers.

This prompted the other son to take him to court and compel him to pay his brothers.

On Oct. 19, the judge found that the handwritten agreement was legally binding, and ordered the man to honour his payments.

The two brothers had several other financial and legal disputes which were also addressed in court.

Backstory

The mother, according to an Oct. 19 judgement, died in December 2012 and left behind several properties and monies.

Her four surviving sons were the claimant — David Chan Yip Tong, the defendant, Franklin Chan Yip Tong, and their two other brothers, Jack Chan Yip Tong and George Chan Yip Tong. 

One son, Oliver Peter Yip Tong had died before her.

David and Franklin were named as the executors of her estate, which was to be bequeathed to David, Franklin, Oliver's daughter, and George's daughter.

Three properties were to be inherited:

• The Eng Kong Road house, to be divided equally,
• A retail property at Far East Shopping Centre to be divided by the two sons and Peter's daughter, and
• A condominium unit at Hindhede Walk to be shared by the two granddaughters.

Relations between the brothers soon became strained, especially because Jack and George were left with nothing.

Their uncle, Tam Sook, then flew from Mauritius to Singapore in June 2018 to help mediate.

After he proposed that David and Franklin should use the proceeds from the Eng Kong Road property sale to give S$300,000 each to their brothers, the two agreed orally.

However, the sum was never transferred.

Franklin claimed that in their oral agreement, one of the conditions agreed upon was that the house would have to be sold by Sept. 30 2018, and since the house was not sold by then, the agreement was superseded.

David, on the other hand, disagreed that it was a condition, arguing that it was a target date by which they would attempt to pay George and Jack.

Sold

In September 2021, Franklin told David that there was a offer to buy the house for S$5 million. As David was a co-owner of the property, his signature was needed in order to facilitate the sale.

When Franklin met David to procure his signature, David told him that he would not authorise the Option to Purchase (OTP) unless Franklin agreed to sign an agreement to give the S$600,000 sum to their other two brothers.

This agitated Franklin, and the two began to quarrel. However, Franklin later relented, and both brothers signed the agreement.

However, the next day, Franklin sent David a text message:

"This is my stance and I declare this note was not created by me, I reject and disagree totally with this note. I was signed under duress with your unknow (sic) hidden ulterior motive. Sorry"

David retorted that he would then consider the OTP to be invalid.

Nevertheless, the property was ultimately sold in April 2022, with the proceeds split between David and Franklin.

Yet the S$600,000 was still not distributed to their brothers.

The two had placed the sum in a joint account that needed authorisation from both parties to make any withdrawals.

David refused to let Franklin withdraw any amount, stating that the money was payable to their brothers.

On the other hand, Franklin claimed that the handwritten agreement was invalid due to lack of consideration and economic duress and/or unconscionability.

Judge weighs in

The judge found that the agreement was valid and that Franklin was obliged to honour it.

Franklin first argued that David had stipulated a set of stringent concessions from the buyer, and since Franklin was the property agent facilitating the sale, the two brothers agreed that David would sign the OTP in exchange for Franklin getting the buyer to agree to his onerous demands.

This meant that David would have committed himself to signing the OTP.

However, text messages revealed that he was non-committal to the sale, telling Franklin, "We shall see the market then."

Furthermore, Franklin claimed that he bought a HDB flat around that time, and since private property owners were not allowed to concurrently own a HDB flat, he needed to divest himself of the Eng Kong Road house, and that David knowingly used this to mount pressure on him.

But more text messages revealed that he told David he was actively considering buying another condominium at the time.

The judge thus struck down Franklin's arguments that he signed the handwritten agreement and made the sale under duress.

His opinion was that it was "obvious" that Franklin was "bent on making a killing from the sale".

Namely, the buyer had offered a price of S$5 million, more than 10 per cent above the bank's valuation of S$4.5 million.

Text messages revealed that when Franklin told David that they found a "windfall offer", the latter replied that he first wanted the payments to their two brothers to be addressed.

Exasperated, Franklin complained that he finally found a "sucker" willing to pay S$5 million, and questioned why David was so reticent.

As such, the judge rejected Franklin's arguments and ordered him to pay the full S$600,000 to George and Jack.

"The defendant should not be allowed to now raise the doctrine of economic duress to wriggle out of keeping to his word," the judge said.

Other issues

Aside from the sum to be paid to their brothers, the judge also settled several issues between David and Franklin arising from the inheritance.

David successfully claimed S$39,300 in unpaid rent and rental proceeds from Franklin for the Eng Kong House road.

Franklin had previously stayed at the property in exchange for rent, followed by another tenant that Franklin found.

The judge also dismissed several claims by Franklin regarding "excess rent" and property tax.

He also ordered that David furnish an account of a blue attaché case containing valuables belonging to their mother.