By Lim Wei Chean & Melissa Sim

NAME calling: check. Anonymous letters: check. Scratched cars and damaged property: check.

Residents of an East Coast condominium are now entering the next phase of what has become an especially fractious en bloc sale: finger-pointing.

At a Laguna Park meeting last Saturday, residents against the collective sale squared off against those in favour.

Aged widow harassed MARKETING manager Edwin Khoo said his widowed 80-year-old aunt faced pressure to sell her flat in the Cairnhill Mansions' collective sale. She received late-night phone calls coaxing her to sell. Members of the sales committee cornered her at lift landings and grilled her on why she held out. One neighbour, a housing agent, took her to view cheaper properties in Newton and Novena. "They targeted her because they thought she would be an easy nut to crack since she lives alone," Mr Khoo said. "She was so rattled and spooked by all the late-night calls and pressure that she didn't dare to leave her home during the en-bloc fever last year."

They each blamed the other for a recent spate of vandalism which saw cars doused with what was likely
to be acid.

The situation is the latest example of en bloc battles that are bleeding the neighbourliness out of neighbourhoods. As the fever for collective sales cools and profits thin, some insiders say the battles are becoming nastier.

Property consultant CBRE says a total of 112 sites sold for $12.45 billion last year. So far this year, six sites have been sold for $360.03 million.

Residents in some estates have seen a surge in pressure tactics, from name-calling and flyers shoved into letter boxes to paint thinner poured on cars.

But just who is behind the crimes is a matter of much debate.

En bloc vandals work on the sly and have yet to be caught, but those in the property industry feel that investors are the ones playing dirty.

Property consultant David Chia said that the crimes are unlikely to have been committed by long-time owners, as they would not want to risk the embarrassment of being found out.

"This narrows it down to investors who have nothing to lose,?" he said.

Many of these investors bought multiple flats at the height of the en bloc fever last year and are eager to sell them off in the face of a cooling property market.

But investors such as Mr Simon Teh, 50, disputed the accusations: "Why should we go and fight and vandalise cars? That doesn't help us get 80 per cent approval for the sale and, worse still, we can get jailed."

Mr Patrick Kumar, 53, who has been involved in three collective sales, agreed: "Violence will just
harden a person's sentiment not to sign."

As an investor, he said, he was "more likely to placate the residents".

Investors are there for the money, not for the violence," he explained.

Harnessing fengshui SOME Farrer Court residents received letters warning them to sign the collective sale agreement of face bad fengshui. This "negative energy" would result in death, illness, bad results at work and in school and even the inability to conceive male offspring. One letter claimed: "The yin energy causes more female children to be born to families in Farrer Court. Ask and look around and you will find it to be true. This is bad for the family name in Chinese tradition." The notes were shoved into postboxes, though some were mailed, presumably so that their distributor would not be caught.

Instead, he passed the buck to owners living in the condominiums, saying some might be anxious to catch the tail end of the en bloc wave and cash out.

Another bogeyman cited by unhappy home owners: agents appointed by the sales committee, who usually collect a fee of 0.2 per cent to 1.5 per cent of the property value.

Veteran "en blocker" Mr Kumar said agents are the ones who "rile people up" and keep track of who has signed the collective sale agreement and who has not.

But Mr Jeremy Lake, CBRE's executive director of investment properties, maintained otherwise.

He said: "We will be proactive, but we also know that if we push too far, it would be counter-productive.

"In fact, we do take appropriate steps to dissipate tension during meetings."

Property consultants who deal with en bloc sales say the ugliest cases, like in Laguna Park, are rare.

More common, said Mr Karamjit Singh, the managing director of Credo Real Estate, are shouting
matches during residents' meetings.

Property firm Savills' director of marketing and business development

Ku Swee Yong said: "When it comes to en blocs, even educated people become idiots."

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Aug 11, 2008.

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