SINGAPORE – A man who sued his late mother’s estate for half of the rent it had collected over two decades on a Housing Board coffee shop won his case when a judge ordered the estate to pay him his share.

But just 38 per cent, and not 50 per cent, as he had contended in his suit.

Mr Tia Oon Lai, 69, who co-owned a 30-year lease on the coffee shop with his mother, sued her estate after she died, claiming for a half-share of the rent that had been paid to his mother by food court operator Koufu from October 1998 to June 2018.

The eldest son claimed this was because his father had “gifted” the coffee shop to him and his mother in equal shares.

He alleged that his mother, Madam Su Ye Chu, had committed breach of trust through the “unauthorised dissipation” of his share of the rent.

Mr Tia also sued his eldest sister Sally, 74, and youngest sister Poh Kim, 62, both of whom began handling their mother’s finances in 2015.

In a written judgment on June 9, the High Court said Mr Tia failed to prove that his father had gifted the lease to him and Madam Su in equal shares, or even that his father had paid for the lease.

However, Judicial Commissioner Kristy Tan found that Mr Tia was entitled to a 37.65 per cent share of the rent from October 1998 to June 2018. The judge ordered the estate to give an account to him and to pay him this share after deductions.

The judge made the declarations after concluding that Madam Su and Mr Tia were the ones who had paid $1.4 million for the lease in 1998.

Of this amount, about $354,000 was paid in cash; the rest was funded with a $1.08 million loan taken out by Madam Su and Mr Tia.

The judge found that Madam Su had paid the cash, and that mother and son had each contributed 50 per cent of the loan amount.

Based on the proportion of financial contributions, the judge declared that, up until June 2018, Madam Su owned a 62.35 per cent stake in the lease, while Mr Tia owned 37.65 per cent.

This was because up to that point in time, there was insufficient evidence of a common intention between mother and son as to how the beneficial interest in the property was to be held.

However, from July 2018 onwards, an agreement was reached for Mr Tia to receive 50 per cent of the monthly rent from Koufu.

The agreement constitutes an intention that the ownership of the lease would be held in equal shares from then on, said the judge.

Rejecting the estate’s argument that the time limit for Mr Tia&rsqu...