Landlord refuses to give me their address

[xenophon10000]

Hi guys,

I need to send my landlord a registered letter, but she refuses to give me her address, telling me "not to waste money" on a registered letter and various other bizarre excuses.

Is it legal for her to withold her address from me? (It is also not present on my rental contract, i.e. I have no way to contact her other than by phone or by sending her a letter to MY address.)

Thanks in advance.

Xeno

[sundaymorningstaple]

Where do you send your rent too?

Send the registered letter there. Otherwise, if you just bank it into her account, don't. When she calls you up for the rent, tell you you will mail her a check. Where should you send it. If she says she'll pick it up, wait for her to show up and then don't give her the check until you see her NRIC. When you get the NRIC copy the address off the back.

Or, if she is the owner of the flat, contact the HDB or Buiilding management if it's a condo and they should have the address of the owner.

[xenophon10000]

Thanks sundaymorningstaple,

The rent is paid to her bank, but I can definitely ask the condo management, I guess they might have an address for her unless she is only registered as living in my place. It wouldn't surprise me. She is so insistent on not giving me her address that it makes me very suspicious.

Is it possible that she's up to something dodgy and that's why she doesn't want to give me her address? Some avoidance of tax or something?

[teck21]

Are you all in the midst of some dispute? Or an impending one?

Is she up to something? Possibly. Is she just weird? Possibly. Probably thinks that you want her address because you want to give her trouble. Some people are simply paranoid.

Does she know why you need to send her registered mail? Does this article of mail contain something that makes her not want to receive it?

But you did check that she is indeed the legal owner of the place before you signed the contract right?

[oku]

it is just as bad over here in london.

we are rented a house from a company with lots of houses for lease. we were assured by the company mgt office (lease dept) that they would help us if we have any problems with the property during our stay there which sadly to say, not the case. calls were never returned and emails were ignored. we have to fix everything ourselves. recently we even received a letter stating that the property has a mortgage issue with a financial company.

a check with other friends here show that most do not know who and where the landlords are. all transactions were handled by agent who after signing of contract, disappeared. calls to estate agency were never returned and personal trips to office were never entertained with excuses "agent is not around, will leave msg for him to return call".

[QRM]

In London you as the tenant are in a very strong position, most of the laws are tilted in favor of the tenant. Your deposit is held in a third party account and the landlord has no access to it with out your written permission. Even if there is a mortgage problem with the property thats not really your problem you can just sit tight.

Landlord has to repair everything, he cannot come near the house etc. Singapore its the total opposite.

[oku]

yes, our deposit is safe.

but i just find it funny that the landlord and his staff do not bother to reply to calls and emails. i only called them on 2 issues (alarms and arson). the alarms was the first issue i had and they only revert 2 weeks after my first call. after that i took care of the minor issues myself.

but in nov, someone started a fire at my side fence and a police report was made. i informed the landlord via emails but till now, no one bother to check on the demage.

i mean, it is like i am renting a house from a phantom.

also another thing i find shocking is that in london, if you leave your house empty (like away on holidays) for a few days, even if you get someone to pop in daily to check the place, if some squatters moved into your house, there is no way you can get them out. police is unable to evict them and squatters can ignore court order. even the electric and water company would not cut off the supply because it is against the squatters' human rights. so you are left homeless.



oh, you still have to pay for the electric and water bills

[chiedog]

yeah..as a singaporean (immigrated for 15 years to the USA), i can say she's classic "singaporean"... don't waste time on this lah, or that lah..

sometimes in her quest to be more "efficient" or achieving her landlord KPI objectives, she's gotta respond like that... but yeah, you can be just as hard and ask for the NRIC card and it'll have the address.. i mean, she's gotta prove she's who she says she is right? haha

in fact, i so love it when i get responses or in situations like that.. they're just asking for it.

[Mad Scientist]

Hi guys,

I need to send my landlord a registered letter, but she refuses to give me her address, telling me "not to waste money" on a registered letter and various other bizarre excuses.

Is it legal for her to withold her address from me? (It is also not present on my rental contract, i.e. I have no way to contact her other than by phone or by sending her a letter to MY address.)

Thanks in advance.

Xeno

Under the law if the landlords has two propertries HDB and private, the landlord has to live in the HDB apartment and rent out the private one. Unless the landlord is doing the opposite. Which will explain alot for the dodgyness.
If you are legal to work and live in SG, prior you signing the rental agreement, the landlord has to check with MOM for your legalities. You can do the same too to check with MOM to protect your interest.
Other than this, if you pay the rent to the landlord bank account, under r full name, the phone book will help.
Under the law whether whether any agreement by contract or tort or otherwise, expressed or not : name , residential address and the legal paper has to be verified prior signing of papers. Did you did that ?
If that registered letter is VERY IMPORTANT , another way is hand it by hand and asked her to sign on two slip stating she received it with the date on her handwriting to make it binding and legal with you. Pass a copy to her. IT will be binded in court. Same method as sub poena
If all these method does not work . I can only tell you typical SG Kiasuism. "Want to do but scared to die"

[heikal]

you can do a check on the registered owner of your address at the IRAS website. you won't find the address. but looking at how things are going, either she's dodging you cos that's how she is, or she's dodging you because there's something wrong.

if the name registered under the said address is not of her's or her spouse, you might (or might not.. for convenience sakes) want to bring it up to the authorities.

[QRM]

I never give my address or contact details to the tenant, this avoids all sorts of petty calls in the middle of the night.

The tenant have the managing Agent details and she gets paid to deal with everything. The only time she gets in touch if any expenses for the rental properties goes over a certain amount.

So it might not be dodgy, your landlord probably doesn't want to get involved into to day to day running of a place.