PUSHING two trolleys full of court documents, 80-year-old Chow Ai Hwa arrived at the Strata Titles Board yesterday morning to contest the collective sale of her Napier Road estate, Eng Lok Mansion.
Dressed in a blue floral blouse and blue skirt, Madam Chow asked two of the five members of the tribunal hearing her case to disqualify themselves because of a conflict of interest.
She did not want Mr Tay Kah Poh on the panel as he had been a director at Knight Frank - Eng Lok's managing agent - for 12 years before he left the property consultancy firm a year ago.
Nor did she want the board's deputy president, Mr Alfonso Ang, to preside over her case as he had been with law firm Shook Lin & Bok in 1996. Madam Chow said the firm had acted for her estate years ago when it failed in its other attempt at a collective sale.
But both men declined to disqualify themselves.
Mr Tay said his former employers Knight Frank did not have anything to do with Eng Lok's collective sale. It was CB Richard Ellis which had brokered the deal.
Mr Ang left Shook Lin & Bok 'many, many years ago' and his old firm was not involved in any way in the current sale.
But Madam Chow shook her head, saying: 'I don't believe your explanations. There's still feelings, relationships between all of you.'
The hearing had to be delayed for an hour yesterday as Madam Chow decided at the last minute that she needed a Chinese translator.
The retired nurse is trying to block the sale of her estate, located beside Gleneagles Hospital, which was sold in March to Napier Properties for a then record price of $138 million.
Apart from claiming the estate could have been sold for double that amount, Madam Chow is also objecting as she feels her late husband's spirit still visits her and if she moves away, he would not know where to find her.
Madam Chow was the first owner of her unit, paying $40,000 for it 37 years ago. She also acts for her son, who owns another unit but works overseas now.
The two are the only hold-outs in the 64-unit estate. All the other residents have agreed to the deal, which would net them $2.156 million each.
About 10 of them turned up for the hearing yesterday, hoping to see the last stumbling block to the lucrative deal fall.
But they will have to wait another two weeks for the next hearing as yesterday's session could not finish by 1pm.
Madam Chow kept talking and interrupting the tribunal, leading Mr Ang to say: 'Madam, let me finish talking or we'll never finish.'
At one stage, he had to tell her to sit down five times before an agitated Madam Chow stopped talking and took her seat.
Lawyer David De Souza, who acts for Eng Lok, said the estate had followed all the correct procedures for the collective deal.
As for Madam Chow's request that she be given an apartment at the new development, Mr De Souza said the sales agreement stated that former residents of Eng Lok had first priority to buy a unit at the new estate.
benjamin@sph.com.sg
