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Published September 21, 2007

Horizon Towers resolution may be in sight

Owners of 135 units vote to extend sale deadline to Dec 11

By MICHELLE QUAH

(SINGAPORE) There may finally be a resolution, of sorts, for the long-running Horizon Towers saga.

Owners of 135 units at the Leonie Hill development - who attended a hastily convened meeting at the Raffles Town Club last night - voted in favour of extending the deadline for the en bloc sale of the development.

These owners - who form the bulk of the owners of the 177 units who had consented to the en bloc sale in February - agreed to push back the collective sale deadline to Dec 11. They also agreed to do everything 'reasonably necessary' to effect the collective sale.

And while these owners of 135 units recognise that their votes are not binding on the owners of the remaining 42 units - who didn't attend last night's meeting - they say they hope the other owners will support their decision.

They will be reaching out to these remaining owners soon, to seek their support.

This startling twist to recent events may be the key to unlocking the impasse between the majority sellers of Horizon Towers and the development's buyers - Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL), Morgan Stanley Real Estate-managed funds and Qatar Investment Authority.

HPL and its partners sued the majority sellers after repeated requests to the sellers - to extend the Aug 11 sale completion deadline by four months - were not met.

The collective sale had collapsed on a technicality before the Strata Titles Board (STB) in early August, and the buyers wanted an extension of the deadline so that there would be enough time to file a fresh application to the STB for a collective sale order.

HPL and its partners have threatened to sue every one of the majority sellers for millions of dollars each.

HPL chief Ong Beng Seng - who rarely makes public appearances - even met some 40-odd sellers at the Hilton on Wednesday, in a bid to convince them of the need to extend the deadline.

His lawyers, Allen & Gledhill, also told the attendees at the Hilton meeting that they would be prepared to adjourn the legal proceedings if the sellers agreed to extend the deadline - and that they would drop the lawsuit altogether if the sale goes through.

Some observers believe that this overture by HPL may have swayed the vote at the Raffles Town Club meeting yesterday.

A group of sellers, represented by Wong & Leow, however, told BT that their decision to extend the deadline wasn't motivated by the threat of the lawsuit filed against the sellers.

'Throughout this entire period, from the time the STB rejected the collective sale application, we have never said we were not going to extend the deadline. We have chosen to extend the deadline today, as an act of good faith,' said a spokesperson for the group, which comprises owners of about 60 units.

When contacted by BT last night, HPL's group executive director Christopher Lim said the buyers would honour the undertaking given to sellers at the Hilton meeting.

'We will stand by what we offered, which is that we are prepared to apply for the adjournment of the legal proceedings once we get formal confirmation that the deadline has been extended. And we will drop the lawsuit altogether once the collective sale goes through,' he said.

It means, however, that the lawsuit still hangs over the majority sellers.

The Horizon Towers owners at last night's Raffles Town Club meeting also voted in a new sales committee - comprising five new members and two members from the first sales committee.