It all started in January 2020 when I was searching for new rental place in the Newton area. I had gone to meet someone called Daniel at L'Viv condo and I liked the look of the place so decided to make an offer. It was on offer for 3200 sgd pm and after some research I decided to offer 2800 for two years. I wastold this was too low and the landlord wouldn't accept this offer. I asked him to submit the offer anyway and funnily enough the offer was accepted shortly after. This was the first bit of trust that was lost with the agent.
From this point onwards I was introduced to a new agent called Stella Khoo would be handling everything moving forward. She wasn't a particularly friendly or welcoming person but I figured it didn't matter as I won't be dealing with her that often anyway.
We completed the handover in what was a downbeat and almost depressing atmosphere. She could hardly muster a smile and I was glad to see the back of her walking out of the apartment. I made sure to take photographs of all the defects in the unit, including a monitor screen next to the front door that had clouded over and was unusable.
For the next two years I paid my rent on time and only contacted her on three occasions which was to add an extra person to the tenancy, to help refund some of the cost when washing machine broke down (I paid the first 250 sgd as per the contract) and when there was a fault with the kitchen hob.
When it came to the end of the two years she asked if I wanted to extend to a further year at which point I agreed. I knew she would try to squeeze some more rent out of me so I maintained that I would only be prepared to pay the 2800 sgd per month that we had agreed previously. This figure was still very much the median market rate for an unfurnished, relatively low-floor unit in the condo. Stella Khoo was obviously not too happy about this and tried to increase to 3000 per month at which I refused. Low and behold my offer of 2800 sgd was accepted a couple days later.
The main problems came a year later when in the first hour of the first working day of the year, Stella sent me a whatsapp saying the landlord is asking for $4200 per month if I would like to extend a further year. Obviously a 50% increase is ridiculous but that seemed to be the way the market was heading in early 2023 which I recognise. She said the landlord could go to $4000 I said could only offer $3400.
The next time I heard from Stella Khoo was when she sent another text message asking if I could show some prospective tenants around my condo. She wasn't even going to come here herself to do it. "Fine" I thought, I'll do her a favour even though she's been a deadbeat person to communicate with for the past three years.
Skip forward and she sends me another whatsapp asking me to video my own condo so she can upload it on . to enhance her advertisement. I thought to myself, "You've been one the most unpleasant people I have ever interacted with, you've tried to get more money from me at every opportunity and you now you want me to sell the unit for you?! I didn't respond and she sent the same message a few days later. I explained the place was very untidy as i was literally in the process of moving out and she would have to be patient for the video. This probably didn't please her but I didn't care at this point.
Five days before moving out she sent a message saying I needed to have the place professionally cleaned. According to the contract it was only the curtains that needed cleaning but I agreed to get cleaners as per her request.
Getting the place cleaned last minute, moving stuff out, selling furniture on the last day and catching a plane back to the UK made it very difficult to do a handover with Stella. She was upset about this so I offered for her to do it with my girlfriend and she agreed.
I felt quite sorry for my girlfriend about having to do this - as I knew Stella was a wretched person and it wouldn't be a terribly nice experience for her. As it turned out my expectations were completely right. Stella turned up with a dark could over her head and proceeded to march around the unit trying to identify every little thing she could to knock off the maximum amount of deposit. She played with the thermostat until it read an error message and charged 435 sgd to fix something with the water heater, a further 200 sgd to replace a toilet seat that was wonky, 200 to replace 'washer rubber' on the washing machine, 180 for a few lightbulbs and a whopping 2800 to replace the already broken monitor screen next to the door! This kind of behaviour is absolutely insane and to think I paid my rent on time up until the last month in good faith that somehow they would prove themselves to be good characters.
In the end I threatened Stella Khoo and her agency Acsend property Consultants with legal action as they were proposing taking 75% off my deposit. It took a week for Stella to respond and she offered to knock off 1400 sgd off the screen as a token of goodwill. Goodwill do me a favour....
One last note, the 'landlord' she kept referring to was not the beneficial owner of the property. That was British Virgin Island registered entity under the name of China Hong Ye Petrochemical Ltd. They had assigned POA to her colleague Low De Yean (Janice). This meant for all this time the acceptance of lease terms, deductions of deposit etc had all been done by herself and he friend Janice who sat across the office from her.
It's entirely feasible that these two have some kind of conflict of interest with this property. I'll probably never find this out but I certainly hope that other prospective tenants read this thread before dealing with Stella Khoo and Ascend Property Consultants in the future.
