Suchergebnisse

The COVID-19 epidemic has not spared any country, not least a densely populated country like Singapore. The government has been working tirelessly developing new policies and laws to mitigate the human and economic devastation brought on by the virus. The COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020 (COTMA) is intended to tackle some of the negative effects brought about by COVID-19. With an initial application period of 6 months which can be amended at the Minister's discretion, the COTMA covers a wide range of issues. Summarily, the COTMA provides for public health controls necessary to manage the health crisis, increases bankruptcy and insolvency thresholds to the advantage of debtors, allows company meetings and court hearings to be held virtually, relieves individuals from their obligations under certain types of contracts, provides rental relief to non-residential small-medium enterprises (SMEs), and requires property tax rebates granted to landlords to be passed on to non-residential tenants. Specific to protecting the interests of commercial tenants are two main thrusts – (a) temporary suspension of the landlord's legal rights against tenants who do not pay rent and (b) direct rental relief provided by landlords.

New South Wales' (NSW) strata regime has had considerable global influence, inspiring many jurisdictions across and beyond the commonwealth. Both Singapore and British Columbia, Canada have adopted NSW's strata model. That being said, these jurisdictions have permitted a collective sale by a supermajority of owners for some two decades while NSW only recently enacted legislation allowing for a strata scheme to be redeveloped or collectively sold via a 75% majority. This marks a significant milestone as it departs from the orthodox position requiring unanimity. Given the newness of the legislative amendments, there is no jurisprudential guidance regarding the content of a strata renewal committee's duty in NSW. Through a comparative analysis of British Columbia and Singapore, this paper suggests how NSW could articulate the duty of care imposed on the strata renewal committee when effecting a collective sale. Being only the second State in Australia to permit strata renewal by a supermajority, the issues raised by the paper may be of some interest in coming years.