Breaking Lease Early?

[Saint]

BTW, is your contract registered with the HDB? Only if your contract is registered with the HDb will it be a legal contract in case of disputes.

After reading your situation, I am glad that I did not get my contract registered with HDB. The most that I am likely lose is 1 month's deposit, which I dont care.

Works both ways

[Mad Scientist]

BTW, is your contract registered with the HDB? Only if your contract is registered with the HDb will it be a legal contract in case of disputes.

After reading your situation, I am glad that I did not get my contract registered with HDB. The most that I am likely lose is 1 month's deposit, which I dont care.

revhappy , your assumption is totally incorrect. Any TA be it in contract express,implied or otherwise, with HDB or Private is deemed a legal document when two parties have put pen on paper and where there is witness to such signing. If there is any disputes one can take it to Small Claim Tribunal or Singapore Mediation Centre or Case or Any other Arbitration Court or panel.
HDB caveat on renting is in place is due to law which prevent homeowners renting indiscriminately and to illegal workers or overstayers.
After all the HDB homes are on 99 year lease. The rightful owner to the homes is still HDB hence they enforced the TA per se
However in private renting there are legal avenues which can redress.
Take a look at this link which offer some perspective on renting issues

http://www.guidemesingapore.com/singapo ... eement.htm

[x9200]

That's why I paid 35$ for a CASE membership Best investment I have made, and have used it once and showed the card twice, to make greedy rip off merchants think twice, even after signing a contract. Knowing your rights is the best way to go

How do they typically interact with you or help you? I am thinking to apply for the membership and the fee is negligible but I am curious how effective their help really is. Typically you get what you pay for, right?

[revhappy]

Thanks for the info, MS.

[ksl]

That's why I paid 35$ for a CASE membership Best investment I have made, and have used it once and showed the card twice, to make greedy rip off merchants think twice, even after signing a contract. Knowing your rights is the best way to go

How do they typically interact with you or help you? I am thinking to apply for the membership and the fee is negligible but I am curious how effective their help really is. Typically you get what you pay for, right?

Actually they did very little for me, other than lodge the complaint with the Furniture Company, regarding extended warranty, which the company refused to honour, in the 3rd year I had one month left because i had misplaced the damn contract, the holes appeared after the second year.

So as soon as CASE contacted them, the Company contacted me, for negotiation's, They sent out surveyors, who tried to say it was all my own fault, it wouldn't have been so bad, if they had sent educated surveyors.
So I challenged their qualifications, which they didn't really have.

I said well I will take it all the way to the small claims. They then offered my 1500$ cash to spend in their store saying that model was discontinued, which i also refused.

The Item was 3500$ but i got 1k discount because they couldn't deliver for 6 weeks it was a very unique sofa, and i wanted it repaired, they quoted me 2800$ to get it repaired. So i said you can have it built new for less than 1500$ the cash they offered me, in Malaysia were it was made. But I said you want me to top up the cash and spend in your shop, and that i refuse to do, and telling them why. Because i lose and they win!

So CASE only kickstart the discussion, with customer care officers, that's all they do.

I am a businessman so I knew already that the sofa probably cost less than the 1500$ they offered me, but the catch is, I would have had to spend another 1500$ to get something i liked.

I was not prepared to spend more money in a shop, which gave bad customer service forcing me to fight for my rights, when they knew all along i was right.
You see I had worked with leather and knew the tanning wasn't done correctly, because it was like tissue paper, you sat on it and holes appeared. Correct tanning strengths leather not weaken it. They blamed the leather polish i used, .

CASE tell you their isn't much they can do other than start the discussions, that was fine for me, we discussed for a month until I won....They specially made the same model I purchased but in a different leather, has they had discontinued the model because of complaints, I later found out from the delivery driver.

I had been the only one, out of 6 or 7, that won, everyone else accepted 1k to spend in their shop, to purchase a new sofa, the other consumers had to top up to buy another sofa over 2k which i found appalling. I have flashed the card on several occasion's, if I think I'm being overcharged and pressured in the shops, then its out in a flash.

They back off when i tell them they are not the first to try it on, so lets dance .
I'll see them all the wayt to the small claims, its a consumers right. CASE also send you updates and a magazine, I thought it was a great help. Though they do say they are limited in what they can do, if the company is not forth coming it doesn't work, and the next step would be the small claims court.

I read also last year some Singaporean invited a tourist guest out to eat crab, they was hit with the most expensive crab in the shop at 450$, per so much weight, they also had the bill reduced eventually and an appology because it hit the media and effected his business.

[x9200]

Though they do say they are limited in what they can do, if the company is not forth coming it doesn't work, and the next step would be the small claims court.

So it more looks like their are helpful by the bluffing effect of unknown authority as authority should be always feared?
And lots of problems with expensive sofas.

[ksl]

Though they do say they are limited in what they can do, if the company is not forth coming it doesn't work, and the next step would be the small claims court.

So it more looks like their are helpful by the bluffing effect of unknown authority as authority should be always feared?
And lots of problems with expensive sofas.

Yes you are right there, Singapore is all about bluffing and calling one's bluff, they have little commonsens, and would stand their ground even knowing they are wrong in most circumstance! Just say, shall we dance! So lets do it in court! Believe me some are hard faced and will go all the way to the courts too, but if you think they are unreasonable its because they are! So its to the courts for an objective view.

Remember when people draw up contracts, its normally one sided they have had it done by legal experts! But the law states all contracts can be appealed against after signing, due to unreasonable clauses, that the layman would never understand. some you win some you lose! Its all about good faith and bad faith

[x9200]

Contracts in Singapore are typically written by the lawyers, this is true, but the main problem is they are often written or requested to be written to cover all possible scenarios. For a number of different contracts I have gone through there was not a single one free from clauses simply defying logic and common sense. This is most frequent for TA and paradoxically there is less rubbish in the contract that are proposed where no agencies are involved. The reasons stated above: companies want to have everything covered and nobody dares to question or change what lawyers stated. I have seen one TA for the rental of an office space that stated (forgive me decoding it to plain English) that if someone (anybody, a guy from the street) will come and complain to the landlord on the tenant's behavior the landlord can unconditionally and immediately terminate the TA without checking or confirming anything. And guess what, it was not possible to remove this clause from the agreement
Maybe 2% ppl here reads contracts (or anything as a matter of fact) before signing it. Even less understands it. I have signed hundreds of different papers while I am here, contracts, delivery confirmation etc, and I do not recall again a single situation where I was not interrupted in my reading and pointed to the place on the paper where I should sign. The good thing is that apparently nobody tries to abuse all these ppl signing with no clue what is this all about.

[nakatago]

The good thing is that apparently nobody tries to abuse all these ppl signing with no clue what is this all about.

You can't abuse it if you don't know about it because you didn't read it.

But yeah, they won't let you be thorough, even if just to save our own arse.

[x9200]

The good thing is that apparently nobody tries to abuse all these ppl signing with no clue what is this all about.

You can't abuse it if you don't know about it because you didn't read it.

I don't really want to explore the subject further by giving some obvious examples Idiots are everywhere so lets not tempt them too much.