Advice needed. Breaking lease due to indoor air pollution

[morrowindszy]

Hi everyone, I recently signed a 2 year lease contract. But the landlord renovated the apartment one week before we were about to move in (painting walls and replacing floor) without our consent. So on the day to hand over keys we were surprised to find out that the room was filled with very pungent smell and the agent explained the reason. The problem is that my roommate is preparing to get pregnant and we were concerned about potential pollution. So we had an indoor air quality assessment company come over and test the air. It turned out the formaldehyde level is 15 times higher than safe level!

We decided not to move in and stayed at another place. But we still paid first month rental and 2 month deposit. We sent the air pollution report the landlord's agent but he replied that we did not ask him "not to renovate the apartment" so it's not his fault and we need to keep paying the rent. We also tried to remove the formaldehyde by placing acticarbon but it hasn't worked so far.

My question is if we can break the lease due to the hazardous air condition. There's no direct clause in our tenancy agreement but can we say we cannot "peacefully hold and enjoy" the apartment because of potential health issue it caused? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[PNGMK]

No chance. Seek rectification of the issue and damages for costs while you wait for the issue to be fixed, if necessary via SCT.

If you can have the unit registered as uninhabitable by a govt agency that would help

[morrowindszy]

Thanks for the input. The report is from a Singapore gov accredited firm. Does it help? We've contacted the landlord but he refused to pay anything to fix the issue. We can afford to lose one month rent and the deposit but really don't want to pay any more.