Man who sued late mum’s estate gets 38% share of rent for Yishun coffee shop over two decades
Source: Straits Times
Article Date: 11 Jun 2025
Author: Selina Lum
He also sued two of his sisters who began handling their mother's finances in 2015.
A man who sued his late mother’s estate for half of the rent she had collected over two decades on a Housing Board coffee shop won his case when a judge ordered the estate to pay him his share.
But just 38 per cent, and not 50 per cent as he had contended in his suit.
Mr Tia Oon Lai, 69, who co-owned a 30-year lease on the coffee shop with his mother, sued her estate after she died, claiming a half-share of the rent that had been paid to his mother by foodcourt operator Koufu from October 1998 to June 2018.
The eldest son claimed this was because his father had “gifted” the coffee shop to him and his mother in equal shares.
Mr Tia alleged that his mother, Madam Su Ye Chu, had committed a breach of trust through the “unauthorised dissipation” of his share of the rent.
He also sued his eldest sister Sally, 74, and youngest sister Poh Kim, 62, both of whom began handling their mother’s finances in 2015.
In a written judgment on June 9, the High Court said Mr Tia failed to prove that his father had gifted the lease to him and Madam Su in equal shares, or even that his father had paid for the lease.
However, Judicial Commissioner Kristy Tan found that Mr Tia was entitled to a 37.65 per cent share of the rent from October 1998 to June 2018. The judge ordered the estate and Madam Sally Tia to give an account to him and to pay him this share after deductions.
The judge made the declarations after concluding that Madam Su and Mr Tia were the ones who had paid $1.4 million for the lease in 1998. Of this amount, about $354,000 was paid in cash; the rest was funded with a $1.08 million loan taken out by Madam Su and Mr Tia.
The judge found that Madam Su had paid the cash, and that mother and son had each contributed 50 per cent of the loan amount.
Based on the proportion of financial contributions, the judge declared that, up until June 2018, Madam Su owned a 62.35 per cent stake in the lease, while Mr Tia owned 37.65 per cent.
This was because up to that point in time, there was insufficient evidence of a common intention between mother and son as to how the beneficial interest in the property was to be held.
However, from July 2018 onwards, an agreement was reached for Mr Tia to receive 50 per cent of the monthly rent from Koufu.
The agreement constitutes an intention that ownership of the lease would be held in equal shares from then on, said the judge.
Rejecting the estate’s argument that the time limit for Mr Tia’s claim has passed, she said the estate owed him an equitable duty to account for his share of the rent, which is not subject to any time bar.
The judge dismissed Mr Tia’s other claims against his sisters and a counterclaim by the estate that his half-share of the property was held on trust for Madam Su.
Mr Tia’s parents, who married in 1950 and had three sons and five daughters, ran a coffee shop that moved to Yishun Street 72 in 1984.
In 1997, Mr Tia’s father withdrew from the business after a stroke. Mr Tia and his mother became the registered owners of the business.
In December 1998, HDB granted Madam Su and Mr Tia a 30-year lease on the premises as tenants-in-common in equal shares.
Tenancy-in-common is a form of property ownership where each co-owner has a distinct share, which can be unequal and does not automatically pass to the other co-owner upon death.
Since September 1998, Madam Su and Mr Tia have entered into various agreements to rent out the coffee shop to Mr Pang Lim and Madam Ng Hoon Tien, the couple behind Koufu.
All the rental payments from October 1998 to June 2018 were made directly to Madam Su.
Mr Tia’s father died in 2004.
In 2015, Madam Su got the two daughters to help handle her finances. From August 2015 to June 2018, the rent was paid into a new account opened in the joint names of the three women.
Madam Su died in October 2021.
Mr Tia said he filed the suit after his sisters’ then lawyers issued a letter in March 2022 refusing to give him an account of the rent.
In trying to prove his case, Mr Tia contended that his mother did not have funds to pay for the lease. However, the judge rejected his “caricature” of his mother as a housewife whose only role was to raise eight children and who did not have her own income.
She said the evidence supports the view that Madam Su had funds of her own.
Mr Tia’s younger brother Oon Huat, 68, who is not a beneficiary of their mother’s will, testified that she worked at the drinks stall from 1984 to 1998, and received a monthly salary plus a share of the profits.
Selina Lum is senior law correspondent at The Straits Times.
Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
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