SINGAPORE: A man is suing one of his 12 siblings, whom he accused of taking his share of the sale of their father’s house, a Queenstown bungalow that sold earlier this year for S$8.25 million.
Each sibling, plus their mother, should have received S$634,615.
However, according to a report in Shin Min Daily News, one of the man’s sons, Cai Shuicai, has slapped his older brother, Cai Shuiliang, with a lawsuit, alleging that his brother took his share of the sale proceeds.
Brother vs Brother
The house that belonged to their father, Cai Muguai, is located on Barbary Walk near Stirling Road in Queenstown. After he died on February 10, 1986, he left the house to his wife and children.
By 2013, the High Court approved the sale of the property after three of the siblings applied for it. In February of this year, it sold for S$8.25 million.
The matter should have ended there, but the sale of the home came as a surprise to Cai Shuicai, who was unaware of it because he was not in Singapore when the transaction occurred and only learned about it from one of his sisters. Additionally, Cai Shuicai has often been overseas over the past years.
To make matters worse, he did not receive his share of the sale proceeds. His sister, however, presented a document to him that said that he had transferred his share of ownership in 1993 of the bungalow to Cai Shuiliang.
Cai Shuicai denied this, however, and the Shin Min Daily News report added that he claims that he is illiterate and that he did not understand the document that he signed. His version of the story is that he had been informed by his older brother to sign it so that he could receive his share of the sale proceeds.
He has since sued his brother in an attempt to get the ownership transfer agreement revoked so he can get his share. Through his lawyer, he sent Cai Shuiliang a demand letter as well as a settlement proposal.
His older brother, meanwhile, claims that Cai Shuicai had approached him, telling him he wanted to sell his share. Furthermore, he said that a lawyer had explained the ownership transfer agreement to both brothers before they signed the document.
Cai Shuiliang also said that he gave Cai Shuicai S$42,307 in cash after the signing of the agreement. He acknowledged that while he has received his younger brother’s demand letter, he added that there has not been a settlement proposal from Cai Shuicai. /TSG
