kindly advise me for tenancy aggrement,thank and appreciate

[catherine26]

I am a Singapore PR and working and living here abt 6 years. This year January I rented a room from a Burmese woman she is not Singapore Citizen or PR and stays here as a Gurdian for her son.I didnt know about it bfore I moved to this room.She siad there was no owner stay and i have to share with 6 tenants only.When I moved to this room ,I found out 11 persons stayed.After two weeks stayed, i went back to my country a bout 3 weeks for vacation.After I came back, other tenants excluding one guy bought a washing machine to overcome the difficulty of old machine that provided by owner.All tenanats said that the machine was not usable( it was vy old and low efficiency, took 2 hours time to wash) and the landlady from whom we all rented room didnt provide workable machine,therefore, they bought new one and shared to use.I also paid my quota for share and usednew machine.When we all moved out one by one from this room caused by lots of inconvenient matters, we all 10 person agreed to take out this machine to donate somewhere.Myself and one tenant moved out from this HDB flat as last persons amongst 10 tenants. We took this machine and the chinese guy called police to get back this machine. When police came, this guy said he was a landlord and we two girls took his machine. We explained to police that we reneted a room fr a burmese lady and not from this guy.This guy stayed in a corner of this flat( as all rooms occupied by 10 tenants).He said burmese lady is a laison person b/w him and other tenants.But we all 10 tenants are professionals and work in Singapore and can speak in English.When we started to rent a room fr burmese lady, she didint mention about this guy was owner or this guy stayed in this flat as well.So we explained to police officers truth.Police listened words from both parties and checked the payment bill for machine and let us out from flat.Then this guy went for small claimt tribunal in which he claimed that I did damage on old machine and he wanted S$ 300 for this damage.But I was out of Singapore on the day he
indicated in the claim form.In consultation section, he couldnot show any evidence abt he was a lanlord who rented out room to all tenents, and no evidence of the machine we took was a compensation for his old machine.We didn't say ever and we bought it for easy use.
Perhaps it was responsibility of landlord to provide the facility needed then provided was very old machine . I know that for General tenency agreement in Singapore, amount exceed $S100 should be responsiblity of landlord.Then under HDB rules, only 6 persons allowed to stay in 3 bed rooms flat.Now the guy didnt comply with all rules and he wanted to protect the burmese lady who illegally rented rooms to all tenants without no legal tenancy agreement or contract, we all paid in person to her and all discussion were verbally talked. She said when she din't provide workable washing machine to us, we should buy ourselves and bring it when we all move out from flat.
Now this guy told us he will sue us in civil court to get back machine even though there is no evidence at all it was his machine.

Kindly advise us, how could we avoid of his unfair and bully manner to us.As we are salary employees and if he threaten to sue in civil court and when court call for tribunal, we will have to take leave again and again. He intentionally did it as he is joblessman. we strongly that no one is above laws and we trust much Singapore Legal system that is famous in world about no bias, no discrimination and no bribery.

thanks and regards,
CT

[jpatokal]

If...

* the guy cannot prove that he was your landlord (do you have a written rental agreement showing somebody else as the landlord? payment slips, anything?)
* the guy cannot prove it's his washing machine
* you can prove that you were out of Singapore on the dates provided (you have passport stamps for this, right?)

...then he has no case at all.

Has the case gone to trial already, or are you still in the mediation phase? Have you asked for night mediation, so you could handle this outside working hours?

http://app.subcourts.gov.sg/sct/page.aspx?pageid=6320

[catherine26]

Hello,

Thanks you so much for the advice, we all 10 tenants rented this flat from the burmease lady, we didnt prepare any legal documents, contractual agreement , as we all are also from same country and just we trust her and she said she was a landlady and no owner stay there, therefore, we trusted her and no payment slip, but one of the tenants paid through Bank account transfer to her account, we have this prove. Now she denied that she ws not a landlady as now we know she is illegally rented flat to us, she is not SPR, S citizen, so the guy protected her and he said he was a landlord, but he hs no proof as well. Then, we finished mediation on 9th and he has no evidence of i dammaged this machine, but in this mediation section, he chnged topic, we took the machine that we compensate to him, he told like this.We never said we compensate to him. The burmese lady from whom we rented room didnt provide the workable machine to us even all tenants complained abt machine, it was very old model and out out warranty long year ago.He and the burmeselady are jobless, she said she canot afford to buy new one for us and urged us to buy new one ourselves, then she told us when we moved , we could take this machine. Then, we bought new one ourselves to facilitate in use( most of tenants stayed in this flat about 3 to 4 months alone, then many inconveniance matters, we moved out).That's why we took it when we all moved out. Now we donated it to tample.But now he said , he will sue us on civil court to get back machine.and

Yes, in my passport, there is a stamp at that day I was out of singapore.

Thanks you so much for kind advice.

Catherine