Rental of 31 Ridout Road

2.09 pm

The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Dr Vivian Balakrishnan): Mr Deputy Speaker, I will explain "why" and "how" my family came to rent the property at 31 Ridout Road.

My wife and I have four children aged between 17 and 34. By 2018, two of them were married and we were blessed with two grandchildren and were expecting more to come. We decided to try to bring the entire extended family together under one roof whilst the grandchildren were still young.

I think older Members will appreciate that attempting to do this requires consent and concurrence of the son-in-law, the daughter-in-law and it also means each nuclear family has to live with their children in the same bedroom. My children agree and we began this journey.

We were aware at that time that there were hundreds of rustic black and white bungalows scattered throughout Singapore, some of them a century old. We had also done some initial due diligence. We went through the State Property Information Office (SPIO) website, so, we had a sense of the market at that point in time. And, of course, Members also know that if we go back to 2018, the rental market, in fact, was declining.

So, in September 2018, my wife was visiting a friend and happened to drive past the property at 31 and there was a prominent "For Lease" sign with a telephone number. She called the number and it turned out to be a property agent from Colliers International Consultancy and Valuation Private Limited.

The property agent showed her several black and white properties in the vicinity and indicated an asking rent of $19,000 for 31 Ridout Road. However, the property had been vacant for many years. Later on, we discovered it had, in fact, been vacant since, I think, July 2013 and, unfortunately, was in an advanced state of disrepair.

Just give Members an idea of what it looked like then: the roof was leaking; the wooden floor upstairs had holes so you could see downstairs from upstairs; the staircase, the wooden fixtures in it were rotting; there was major termite infestation and it was first time in my life I had seen termite mounds in the garden. And it was obvious that extensive repairs would have been necessary to make the house liveable.

Around the property itself, there were several large trees which, in fact, had uprooted, collapsed, damaged the fence, and the undergrowth was unkempt. Actually, we saw snakes both inside and outside the house. And there were also three adjacent properties that were undergoing comprehensive rebuilding, with all the associated noise and dust.

So, we went into this with our eyes open. The asking rent was $19,000. We said okay, we will offer $19,000 but we wanted essential repairs of the house to be conducted and upgrading of the toilets and for this to be done by the landlord, the managing agent, before we took over the property. The managing agent from Colliers rejected this offer. I should say they rejected the offer because they said upgrading the toilets would constitute improvement of the property. So, anyway, they said no. Subsequently, we agreed to bear the cost of improving, upgrading the toilets at our expense. In fact, we have since spent more than $200,000 on a variety of improvement works to the property and we also know that all this money that has been spent cannot be recovered when the tenancy expires.

In other words, we accepted the asking rent stipulated by the property agent and the limited scope of works proposed by the Managing Agent. I should say as Minister for Foreign Affairs, this is not a good example of – how shall I put it – of strenuous negotiations because we basically gave in to what was asked in the first place. But I should say that when I conduct foreign affairs, I am a far sharper negotiator.

Anyway, Colliers subsequently sent a standard tenancy agreement for 3+2+2 years and this was signed, I think, in October 2019 by my wife. I should say, right up to this point, we were not aware of the guide rent, we were not even aware that there had been two prior bids in July and August 2018, and the two prior bids were at $12,000 and at $5,000. I was not aware of this until CPIB published its report. Arguably, maybe we should have held out longer. But never mind, the point is, we signed.

In 2022, my wife requested and was granted a renewal for a second term, this time of 3+2 years. The rental was increased. We currently pay $20,000 a month.

So, Mr Deputy Speaker, let me conclude my brief statement. My wife and I were acutely aware that although we were dealing with Colliers' property agent, the ultimate counterparty to our tenancy agreement was the Government of Singapore. At all times, we were scrupulously careful to ensure that everything was above board. I must say the agent from Colliers and all the staff from SLA have always conducted themselves professionally and with utmost integrity in all their engagements with us. We should be grateful that we have civil servants and people from the private sector who act as our agents, who behave and conduct themselves to this standard because this maintains the integrity of our system. I will be happy to take questions later from Members.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Minister K Shanmugam.