{"id":4601,"date":"2025-08-11T02:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T02:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/man-claims-amid-divorce-that-his-mother-is-true-owner-of-three-properties\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T02:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T02:26:12","slug":"man-claims-amid-divorce-that-his-mother-is-true-owner-of-three-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/man-claims-amid-divorce-that-his-mother-is-true-owner-of-three-properties\/","title":{"rendered":"Man claims amid divorce that his mother is true owner of three properties"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A man involved in ongoing divorce proceedings claimed his widowed mother is the sole owner of three properties despite being registered as a co-owner of the assets.<\/p>\n

When his mother, Madam Ng Chin Huay, went to court to lay claim to the properties, Mr Tan Tien Tuck agreed with her that he was holding his share in the properties on trust for her.<\/p>\n

His brother Tian Koo, who is also a party in the case as he is a registered co-owner of two of the properties, took the same stance.<\/p>\n

On July 30, the High Court rejected Madam Ng’s bid to be declared as the sole beneficial owner of the three properties.<\/p>\n

Instead, Senior Judge Tan Siong Thye concluded that the beneficial ownership should follow the legal ownership, as reflected in the official registration.<\/p>\n

A beneficial owner is a person who has the right to benefit from an asset, even if another person is the registered owner.<\/p>\n

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In his written judgment, Justice Tan said Mr Tan’s contention that his mother is the sole beneficial owner of the properties did not carry much weight, if at all.<\/p>\n

The judge said Mr Tan clearly stood to gain from excluding the properties from the matrimonial pool of his assets to be divided in his divorce with Madam Chen Xiumei.<\/p>\n

This could be the intention and motive behind Madam Ng bringing the case and the reason her sons did not oppose her application, said Justice Tan.<\/p>\n

The division of matrimonial assets will be heard separately by the Family Justice Courts.<\/p>\n

The three disputed properties were identified in the judgment only as Sea Breeze, Langsat and Haig.<\/p>\n

The Sea Breeze property, described by Madam Ng as the “family home”, was bought in 1995 for $1.6 million.<\/p>\n

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It is currently held by her and her two sons as joint tenants.<\/p>\n

The Langsat property, purchased in 1998 for $1.32 million, is held by the two brothers as tenants-in-common with equal shares.<\/p>\n

The Haig property, a commercial unit bought in 2002 for $1.39 million, is held by Mr Tan and Madam Ng as joint tenants.<\/p>\n

On Jan 16, Madam Ng filed a High Court application against her two sons to claim the properties without informing Madam Chen.<\/p>\n

The next day, Madam Chen filed her own application against the trio. The two cases were heard together.<\/p>\n

Madam Ng, who has six children, claimed the properties belonged to her and her husband, and that she is the sole owner after his death.<\/p>\n

She added that she and her husband used the names of the two sons “for convenience to borrow from banks”.<\/p>\n

Madam Ng, represented by Mr Thomas Toh, said the properties were purchased with money from the family business, Huay Tong Trading, which sells household wares.<\/p>\n

She added that the properties were never meant to be gifts to the two sons, and that the two sons did not contribute financially to the purchases.<\/p>\n

Mr Tan and his brother, who were represented by Mr Goh Peck San, filed affidavits stating they “have always been aware” that they do not have any beneficial interest in the properties.<\/p>\n

But Madam Chen contended that Mr Tan was colluding with his family to deprive her of her right to have the properties included as matrimonial assets.<\/p>\n

Madam Chen, represented by Mr Augustine Thung, argued that the evidence showed Mr Tan funded a significant portion of the properties, while there was no evidence of Madam Ng’s contribution.<\/p>\n

In his judgment, Justice Tan said there was a “glaring paucity of evidence”, which made it difficult to ascertain the parties’ intentions with respect to beneficial ownership as well as their respective financial contributions to each of the properties.<\/p>\n

He added: “Ultimately, this is a case where there was no conceivable option other than to hold that the beneficial interests in the properties follow the legal interests.”<\/p>\n

Justice Tan noted that there was no evidence to show the source of the funds for the purchase of the Sea Breeze property, besides a $920,000 mortgage loan taken out by the two sons.<\/p>\n

Madam Ng’s contention that she and her late husband were the ultimate source of all the funds “simply has no leg to stand on”, said the judge.<\/p>\n

Similarly, there was insufficient evidence to establish that her two sons were holding the Langsat property on trust for her.<\/p>\n

The fact that Madam Chen, Mr Tan and their family lived there from the time they were married in 1999 may rebut Madam Ng’s assertion, the judge added.<\/p>\n

As for the Haig property, the only conclusion that could be drawn from the documentary evidence was that a sum of $408,303.65 came from Mr Tan.<\/p>\n

The judge noted that Mr Tan set up a bakery at the property, and that there were at least seven tenancy agreements that were signed solely by him as the landlord.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Selina Lum for The Straits Times<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Man claims amid divorce that his mother is true owner of three properties<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A man involved in ongoing divorce proceedings claimed his widowed mother is the sole owner of three properties despite being registered as a co-owner of the assets. When his mother, Madam Ng Chin Huay, went to court to lay claim to the properties, Mr Tan Tien Tuck agreed with her that he was holding his…<\/p>\n

Read More “Man claims amid divorce that his mother is true owner of three properties”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}