SOME 200 tenants of an Orchard Road condominium who were to have moved out by Wednesday have been given a last-minute reprieve.

But in a twist, their landlord, Ideal Accommodation, has been given the boot.

The situation arose after the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) discovered that Ideal had illegally partitioned apartments - thus creating 600 sub-units from 141 units - at The Grangeford condominium.

The units were individually leased to many subtenants on an en-bloc basis, as a boarding house or hostel use.

According to a Straits Times report, this tactic allowed Ideal to collect more rent by leasing one apartment to eight tenants, instead of about $4,600 by renting it out to one.

The owner of Grangeford Apartments, Cove Development Pte Ltd, a unit of Overseas Union Enterprise (OUE), has terminated its agreement with its master tenant Ideal Accommodation after their repeated delay in reinstating Grangeford units to approved layouts.

The URA has now granted Cove Development till July 27 to remove all partitions and reinstate the apartment units to the approved layouts.

According to the Straits Times, the tenants will have to move out earlier than that, although the date is uncertain, said Mr Steven Ngai, OUE's company secretary.

Background

URA had issued Enforcement Notices to Cove Development and Ideal Accommodation earlier this year on April 29 for the unauthorised use of the premises.

Ideal Accommodation was given a one-month notice till 30 May this year to remove all partitions and cease the unauthorised sub-letting. Upon its appeal, the deadline was subsequently extended to 3 June 2009.

However, during this period, apart from removing the partitions from 141 studio units, Ideal Accommodation had not taken any remedial action on the remaining 459 room units and most of the room units are still being operated as an unauthorised boarding house or hostel.

Interests of sub-tenants will be addressed

Cove Development has informed the URA that it will take action to rectify the breaches quickly and that it will also make arrangements to address the interests of the sub-tenants of the premises.

In its statement, URA said they will be keeping a close watch on the situation at Grangeford, but will bear in mind the interests of the residents and sub-tenants in the process.