SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Dorothy Marie Ng, Monica Yip, Tay Peng Cheng and Tan Shao Tong, WongPartnership LLP
1. General 1.1 Main Sources of Law
private housing experiencing overall slower price growth. Against a backdrop of inflation, high interest rates and geopolitical tensions, there was some slowdown in the commercial real estate market in 2023, although office rents for Grade A office premises showed an increase from 2022 to 2023 and there were still large-scale transactions of commercial real estate. Notable large private transactions in 2023 include: • the SGD652.2 million acquisition of a 50% stake in the NEX suburban mall by Frasers Centrepoint Trust and Frasers Property Lim - ited from Mercatus Co-operative, a unit of NTUC Enterprise; • the SGD538 million en-bloc acquisition of a commercial building known as Shenton House by Shenton 101 Pte Ltd; • the SGD525 million sale of Parkroyal Kitchen - er Hotel by UOL Group Limited to Worldwide Hotels Group; • the SGD441 million acquisition of VisionCrest Commercial by a joint venture comprising TE Capital Partners, Metro Holdings and LaSalle Investment Management; and • the SGD313.5 million joint acquisition of a logistics portfolio of five assets (at 21 Changi North Way, 6 Chin Bee Avenue, 4 and 6 Clementi Loop, 3 Pioneer Sector 3 and 30 Toh Guan Road, Singapore) by Hillhouse Capital from ESR-LOGOS REIT, represent - ing Hillhouse Capital’s first major industrial purchase in Singapore. The government’s imposition of higher additional buyer’s stamp duty on residential properties has redirected some investor interest from residen - tial to commercial assets. Asset classes such
The Singapore legal system is based on the English common law system. Singapore land law falls under two systems: • the Registration of Deeds Act 1988, where lands are typically known as “unregistered land”; and • the Land Titles Act 1993 or the Land Titles (Strata) Act 1967, where lands are registered and known as “registered land”. The system of land registration for registered land is adopted from the Torrens system of land registration. There is legislation governing areas specific to real estate, such as: • permitted use (the Planning Act 1998); • development and construction (the Building Control Act 1989); • management of strata units in flats and build - ings (the Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act 2004); and • taxes relating to transactions involving real estate (the Stamp Duties Act 1929). 1.2 Main Market Trends and Deals Demand in the housing market has remained resilient. To moderate investment demand and prioritise owner-occupation for locals, the gov - ernment introduced higher rates of additional buyer’s stamp duty for residential property pur - chases. The government also focused on ramp - ing up public housing supply in 2023, and on delivering many construction projects that had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the residential market showed signs of easing throughout 2023, with both public and
771 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook