Judge shelves man’s bid for share of parents’ flat, cites doubts about late mums claims

A week after she was diagnosed with final-stage cancer, a woman willed her assets to her two sons and signed a statutory declaration in an effort to preserve a share of an HDB flat for them.

- Selina Lum Senior Law Correspondent

In the declaration, Madam Ang Geok Kheng claimed that her husband - the joint tenant of the Jurong East flat - abandoned the family in 2006 and did not contribute to repaying the housing loan.

She stated that she made monthly cash payments for the loan until it was fully repaid in 2013.

She also believed her rightful share of the flat was at least 80 per cent.

Madam Ang died three days after signing the documents.

A year later, her younger son, Mr Koh You Quan, who was appointed the executor of her will, asked the High Court for a declaration that his father’s share of the flat was held in trust for Madam Ang’s estate.

But his mother’s assertions were contradicted by HDB records, which showed that the monthly repayments were deducted from his father’s Central Provident Fund account, and that the loan was fully repaid in 1998.

In a judgment on Nov 11, Judicial Commissioner Mohamed Faizal said the fact that Madam Ang had misremembered the date by 15 years puts the credibility of her assertions in some doubt.

The judge also found it troubling that the available evidence contradicted her claim that she had made the monthly payments in cash.