If you and someone else own a property together in Singapore and you would like to sell it, but your co-owner won’t agree, keep reading to find out your options. 

Steps to Take When You Want to Sell Your Co-Owned Property and the Other Owner Won’t Agree:

1. Try getting a court order for the property be partitioned.

If you own the property as tenants-in-common with both of you holding separate shares of the property, it is theoretically possible that you could get a court to order the property to be partitioned off. This way you and your co-owner would each own a designated part of the property. Unfortunately, this tactic is rarely used because it’s simply not practical. 

If you end up owning your bedroom plus the living room, who’s going to buy just that? Most buyers would want to own the entire unit, not just a couple of rooms, especially if it doesn’t include the kitchen!

It would also be impossible to partition off sections of a house if the separate land plots end up being too small to meet the requirements of the Urban Redevelopment Authority. 

Therefore, no matter how hard you’ve tried to persuade your co-owner to sell, if your words are still falling on deaf ears, you will have no choice but to apply for a court order to force the sale. 

2. Try getting a court order for the property to be sold. 

According to Order 31 of the Rules of Court you can apply to the General Division of the High Court for a court order to force the sale of the property. To start, you would need to hire a lawyer to prepare an originating summons along with a supporting affidavit. 

The General Division of the High Court has the power to order that a property be sold even when one co-owner is unwilling to agree to the sale. How these orders are carried out is that the co-owner who doesn’t want to sell is offered the right of first refusal to purchase their co-owner’s share by a specific deadline. 

If the co-owner who doesn’t want to sell doesn’t want to or have the money to buy the other co-owner’s share by the deadline, the property can then be put up for sale on the open market. When it sells, the proceeds will be split between the co-owners according to their percentage of ownership. 

If You Co-Own an HDB Flat

If the property you want to sell is an HDB flat, don’t forget that there are certain selling restrictions that must be adhered to. The 5-year Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) must have passed, plus there are citizenship and ethnic restrictions that will apply to the people who want to buy the unit.  

For further details on the HDB’s criteria, please refer to their website. 

What does the court consider in determining whether to order a property be sold?

In deciding whether to issue a court order compelling the sale of a property, the court may consider things like possible bias against the co-owner fighting an order of sale as well as potential financial hardships facing the co-owners. 

For example, if both co-owners are of limited financial means, the proceeds resulting from selling this property may not be enough for them to each buy another property. In a case like this the court may choose against ordering the property be sold. 

However, if the court perceives that joint possession/ownership of the property would not be practical or beneficial to the co-owners and likely lead to additional conflicts, it may issue an order for selling the property on the open market with neither co-owner allowed to sell the property on their own. 

How to Sell En-Bloc Property When Your Co-Owner Won’t Agree?

In a situation in which an application has been filed for a collective or en-bloc sale of two or more units to a common buyer, the Land Titles (Strata) Act states that one co-owner is not entitled to vote for the sale of the property if his/her co-owners disagree.

This is because the en-bloc laws in Singapore require that voters must own the entire property when it comes to voting on whether to sell it. One tenant-in-common does not own the entire property, but just a portion of it. 

Therefore, all tenants-in-common of an en-bloc property must agree to the sale for their vote to be counted towards the required threshold of consent for the proposed sale of the property. 

This also applies to property being held by joint tenants, which means that all joint tenants must be in favour of selling the property. This is the only way their vote will count towards meeting the required threshold of consent for the proposed sale of an en-bloc property. 

If the co-owners of an en-bloc party (whether joint tenants or tenants-in-common) cannot agree on the sale of their property, it will be as if they abstained from voting, having neither supported nor opposed the sale. 

What Happens if The Property Has an Outstanding Loan on It?

If the property being sold is not owned outright by you and your co-owner because of an outstanding property loan, once the property sells the loan will be repaid first from the proceeds with the remainder being split between you and your co-owner. 

Should You Engage a Lawyer? 

Property disputes can become highly contentious, especially when there are two people who co-own a home together that cannot agree on whether it makes sense to sell it or not. Because property is such a high-value asset, if you are the one who wants to sell the property, we would recommend that you engage a lawyer to apply for a court order to force the sale. 

Once the court order is obtained, you will need to engage a conveyancing lawyer to complete the sale and see that the proceeds are distributed properly. There are many law firms that provide both services and can therefore guide you throughout the selling process. We would be happy to refer you to one of our conveyancing lawyer partner who are expert in this field. 

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article does not constitute legal advice. We recommend that you get the specific legal advice you need from an experienced attorney prior to taking any legal action. While we try our best to make sure that the information provided on our website is accurate, you take a risk by relying on it. 

At Pinnacle Estate Agency, we strongly believe in sharing our real estate knowledge to the public.⁠ For more content like this article, check out our Singapore Property Guides.