30-year relationship ends in High Court case

[General Veers]

30-year relationship ends in High Court case
By Tanya Fong, TODAY | Posted: 18 January 2012 0646 hrs

SINGAPORE: A relationship that spanned 30 years, including a de facto marriage, which saw the two parties each eventually marry someone else, is the backdrop for a dispute now in the High Court.

Mr Ng Leong Yew claims that Madam Angela Low Eng Wah - who died of cancer in 2010 - had misappropriated his money when they were together and that she owes him S$500,000. He is also suing her husband, Mr Teo Kee Seong.

Mr Ng, who was educated up to Primary 3 and speaks only Hokkien and Mandarin, said he entrusted all his financial matters to Mdm Low after they became lovers in the early 1970s. He continued to do so even after they both married other people.

Between 1993 and 1995, Mr Ng - who suffered a bone disease that left him with a permanent limp - inherited about S$410,000 in cash and a shophouse in Joo Chiat when his parents died.

Mr Ng claimed that he handed over at least S$130,000 in cash to Mdm Low in 1995 to buy a Housing and Development Board flat in Tampines. They both moved into it in 1996.

He only found out in 1999 that Mdm Low - who worked as a bank clerk - had bought the flat under her name and had not used the S$130,000 to pay for the flat. As a result, he had to take a S$104,000 housing loan.

Mr Ng claimed that Mdm Low had agreed to pay the monthly repayment of the loan but she only did so from 1999 to 2003.

These claims were refuted by Mdm Low's and Mr Teo's lawyer, Tan Kah Hin, who argued that Mdm Low bought the flat for herself using her own money.

Nr Ng also claimed that he had mortgaged the title deeds to his Joo Chiat shophouse in 1999 and taken out an overdraft facility of about S$100,000 from a bank because Mdm Low said she needed the money urgently.

He claimed that a substantial part of this money was transferred to Mr Teo. Mr Teo denied this and claimed that he had transferred the money back to Mr Ng.

Mr Ng also said that Mdm Low paid herself S$46,780 for helping him to claim $157,000 from an aborted en bloc sale of his Joo Chiat shophouse.

She also allegedly paid herself close to S$50,000 as reimbursements for payments she had allegedly made on his behalf for his expenses and gave S$30,000 to Mr Teo for helping to buy and maintain the car.

The hearing before Justice Tay Yong Kwang continues. - TODAY