www.shaproperty.com

MR SYED Abdullah Alhamid remembers that day in April clearly, when the judge sentenced him to jail.

'I thought I was going to be given a warning, just like my client.

'I was very shocked to hear the sentence of one month's jail,' said the 63-year-old man in rapid-fire English.

For the first week in jail, he could not read a thing - he did not know that metal-rimmed glasses were prohibited.

'You lose your freedom and choice in there,' he said.

Mr Syed Abdullah met The Straits Times, with his wife and granddaughter on Wednesday, about two weeks after his release.

He has been picking up the pieces since.

He explained to The Straits Times that he only wanted to 'help' his clients.

'I was trying too hard to help and I got burnt,' he said.

According to court documents, he was hired by Mr Mohd Zais Ismail and Ms Isdawaty Saonan - who were both unemployed - to help them buy an HDB flat in Woodlands in 2003.

But without salaries, it would have been very difficult for the couple to get a loan from the bank. So he asked a property agency owner, Tan Boon Yok, to put funds into Mr Mohd Zais' Central Provident Fund (CPF) account to give Maybank the impression that he was drawing a salary - and could therefore service a mortgage.

Mr Syed Abdullah admitted that what he did was wrong, but added that employees who work for small companies and get paid in cash have problems obtaining proper pay slips.

So some resort to getting a fake one to apply for a home loan.

'Quite a number of workers face this problem, especially those working as cooks, sales assistants and those workers on contract deals.

'They are Singapore citizens and are eligible to buy flats, but they do not have proper pay slips,' he said.

Mr Syed Abdullah was jailed together with Tan and five other agents on April 13.

Some of these agents had obtained fake employment letters or used other illegal methods like CPF injections to help buyers apply for home loans.

Others had aided the arrangements.

In all, 12 Housing Board flats worth more than $1 million were involved in the scams that took place in 2003 and 2004.

The flat buyers were warned.

Mr Syed Abdullah, who has resigned from ERA, now gets by on his savings - culled from richer times between 2003 and last year when he earned gross commissions averaging $750,000 a year.

Right now, he also gets by with some cuts he receives from housing agents when he passes his potential clients to them.

The father of five - aged between 19 and 29 - still needs to put four of them through school.

He said he used to get calls from eight potential clients every week, but that has whittled down to just one or two now.

But the never-say-die spirit is still strong: he is determined to make a comeback in the real estate business.

'This is my cup of tea. I will get up, crawl, walk, do whatever, and stand up again.'

He claims that three agencies have approached him with jobs - a claim that could not be substantiated as he did not want to reveal the names of the agencies.

But he wants a few months' break to 'cool off' before he starts again.

It was a hard lesson learnt, he said.

But now, he tells other agents:

'Help your clients as much as you can, but don't cross the legal boundaries.'

tanhy@sph.com.sg