General Division of the High Court · Decided 5 November 2026

Pak Juin Tern Denzel (suing as administrator of the estate of Lim Huey Yih, deceased) v Leow Quek Shiong (as private trustee in bankruptcy of Lim Huey Ching) and another

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[2026] SGHC 231Case no. Originating Claim No 917 of 2025

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Evidence Act 1893

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Low Siew Ling JC:
Introduction
[1] This case is yet another episode in the long series of litigation that has flowed from the liquidation of Hin Leong Trading (Pte) Ltd (“Hin Leong”) and the bankruptcy of its controlling family comprising Mr Lim Oon Kuin (“Mr OK Lim”), Ms Lim Huey Ching (“Ms Lim”) and Mr Lim Chee Meng (also known as Evan, “Mr Evan Lim”) (collectively, the “Lims”). The claimant is the grandson of Mr OK Lim and son of the late Ms Lim Huey Yih (“Deceased”). His claim is that a property registered in Ms Lim’s name is held on trust for his late mother, and should thus be administered under his mother’s estate instead of Ms Lim’s bankruptcy estate.
[2] The claimant claims that there is a common intention constructive trust or resulting trust over the property. Alternatively, he makes a claim in unjust enrichment against his aunt, Ms Lim. For reasons I explain below, I dismiss all of his claims.
Facts
The parties
[3] The claimant, Mr Denzel Pak Juin Tern (“Mr Pak”), is the only son of the Deceased and the sole beneficiary of her estate. The Deceased was the daughter of Mr OK Lim and Mdm Tan Sook Eng (“Mdm Tan”) and the sister of Ms Lim and Mr Evan Lim. After the Deceased passed away on 29 June 2017, Ms Lim and Mdm Tan were appointed the joint administrators of her estate on 9 July 2018 in HCF/P 294/2018 (“P 294”). Several years later, on 2 April 2025, Mr Pak was made the sole administrator of the estate.
[5] Ms Lim filed for bankruptcy on 14 October 2024 in HC/B 3859/2024 (“B 3859”) and was adjudged bankrupt on 19 December 2024. The first defendant to the present action, Mr Leow Quek Shiong (“Mr Leow”), and the second defendant, Ms Seah Roh Lin (“Ms Seah”), were appointed as the joint and several private trustees in bankruptcy (collectively, the “PTIBs”) of Ms Lim. Ms Lim remains an undischarged bankrupt to date.
The dispute
[6] The dispute centres on a condominium unit at 8 Walshe Road, #06-01, Chelsea Gardens, Singapore 257652 (“Property”). The Property was purchased in 1997 and registered solely in Ms Lim’s name. Ms Lim also registered another unit in the same condominium development with the address 8 Walshe Road, #10-01, Chelsea Gardens, Singapore 257652 (“Unit #10-01”), in her sole name in March 2001. She later transferred legal title over Unit #10‑01 to her husband, Mr Seow Fook Sen Aloysius (“Mr Seow”), around May to July 2002.
[7] Although the Property was registered in Ms Lim’s name, when she filed for bankruptcy in B 3859, she declared that the Property was “held on trust for [her] nephew, [Mr Pak]” in a schedule of assets appended to her supporting affidavit (“Bankruptcy 2024 Affidavit”). This prompted the PTIBs to probe into the beneficial ownership of the Property. In January 2025, Ms Seah emailed Ms Lim to ask for a copy of the trust agreement for the Property. Ms Lim redirected the inquiry to Mr Pak, whose solicitors from Haridass Ho & Partners (“HHP”) responded in February 2025 that there were “no written trust agreements” in respect of the Property but instead a “common intention constructive trust” or alternatively a “resulting trust” over the Property in favour of the Deceased. After the Deceased passed on, her beneficial interest in the Property vested in Mr Pak, the sole beneficiary of her estate. The PTIBs’ solicitors replied to HHP in April 2025 to dispute the assertions of a trust. After Mr Pak obtained the grant of letters of administration in respect of the Deceased’s estate, he brought the present action in his capacity as administrator of the estate on 5 November 2025.
The purchase and use of the Property
[8] The option to purchase the Property (“OTP”) was issued by its developers, City Developments Ltd and Hong Leong Holdings Ltd (collectively, the “Developers”), to Ms Lim on 30 July 1997. The sale and purchase agreement for the Property dated 16 September 1997 (“SPA”) named the Developers as the vendors and Ms Lim as the purchaser.
[9] The purchase price of the Property was S$3,819,270, including a booking fee of S$190,963.50. The first 20% of the purchase price was paid by cheque from a Deutsche Bank account jointly held by Mr OK Lim and Ms Lim (“DB SGD Joint Account”) in 1997. It is undisputed that at all material times, Mr OK Lim was the beneficial owner of the moneys in the DB SGD Joint Account.
[10] As for the balance 80% of the purchase price, a housing loan of approximately S$3,055,000 was obtained by Ms Lim from Singapore Finance Ltd in October 1997 for a 15‑year term (“SFL Loan”). Ms Lim received the loan offer as the registered owner of the Property, and Mr OK Lim executed a deed of personal guarantee as security for the loan. The SFL Loan was disbursed from June 1998 onwards and fully discharged in June 2013. A total of S$3,713,141 was paid in satisfaction of the SFL Loan, including interest. Including the booking fee and the first 20% of the purchase price, a total of S$4,476,995 was paid for the Property including interest.
[11] The certificate of statutory completion for the Property was issued in August 2001. The Deceased and Mr Pak resided together in the Property from around 2003, until 2004 or 2005 when they moved to stay with Mr OK Lim and Mdm Tan. The Property remained unoccupied until Mr Evan Lim moved in after his divorce in 2008. Mr Evan Lim stayed in the Property until around 2010 or 2011. The Property was then left vacant, save for a period of time during the COVID‑19 lockdown in 2020 when Mr Pak self‑quarantined there.
The alleged common intention and repayments by the Deceased
[12] Notwithstanding that Ms Lim is the sole registered owner of the Property and that Mr OK Lim financed the acquisition of the Property, Mr Pak claims that the Deceased was the sole beneficial owner of the Property. His claim is premised on an alleged oral agreement between Ms Lim, the Deceased and Mr OK Lim made sometime in 2000 for Ms Lim to hold the Property on trust for the Deceased, and for Mr OK Lim to pay for the purchase first and for the Deceased to repay him later. The following version of events is based heavily on the accounts of Ms Lim and Mr OK Lim, as Mr Pak and Mr Evan Lim both admitted that they were not personally involved in any of the contemporaneous discussions about a trust over the Property.
[13] According to Ms Lim, in 1997, she was looking for a residence for herself and was house shopping at Chelsea Gardens. She proceeded to acquire the Property for herself. Sometime later in 2000, when the Deceased was undergoing a divorce, she informed her parents and Ms Lim that she was looking for a place for herself and Mr Pak. Mr OK Lim indicated that he would fund the purchase of a property for the Deceased, on the expectation that the Deceased would repay him when she was financially able to.
[14] Ms Lim and the Deceased proceeded to look for a unit within Chelsea Gardens as the Deceased wanted to stay near Ms Lim. The Deceased also wanted a unit that was similar in size to the Property as she considered it to be fitting for two persons, but the sisters were informed by the Developers that only larger units were available in the same block. The sisters then worked out a plan for the Deceased to take over ownership of the Property while Ms Lim would take Unit #10‑01, which was a larger unit in Chelsea Gardens. .
[15] The sisters verbally asked the Developers if the Deceased could be registered as the owner of the Property, but the Developers purportedly turned them down as there was a policy against changing the buyer’s name after the OTP was signed, to prevent buyers from reselling the property for profit after signing the OTP. Mr Pak also pleaded that another reason the Developers had declined to change the registered ownership of the Property was because they had given Ms Lim a 10% bulk purchase discount for acquiring two units in Chelsea Gardens. However, none of the affidavits of evidence‑in‑chief (“AEICs”) of Mr Pak’s witnesses gave evidence to support this particular assertion.
[16] Given the above circumstances, the Deceased and Ms Lim discussed the matter among themselves and with their parents, and agreed that: (a) the Property would continue to be held in Ms Lim’s name but on trust for the Deceased; (b) the purchase price and mortgage for the Property would be paid by Mr OK Lim; and (c) the Deceased would repay Mr OK Lim when she was financially able to.
[17] Ms Lim and Mr OK Lim averred that the Deceased fully repaid Mr OK Lim in 2015 using dividend payouts from her 10% shareholding in each of two ship‑owning companies, Nan Hui Maritime (Pte Ltd) (“Nan Hui”) and Xin Hui Shipping (Pte Ltd) (“Xin Hui”).
[18] Nan Hui declared the following dividends in 2015 (respectively, “Nan Hui Dividends 1, 2, 3 and 4”):
(a) Dividend 1/2015 of S$2.5m on 29 April 2015, of which S$250,000 was due to the Deceased;
(b) Dividend 2/2015 of S$1.6m on 16 June 2015, of which S$160,000 was due to the Deceased;
(c) Dividend 3/2015 of S$1.35m on 20 August 2015, of which S$135,000 was due to the Deceased; and
(d) Dividend 4/2015 of US$4m on 3 December 2015, of which US$400,000 was due to the Deceased, and that
Xin Hui declared the following dividends in 2015 (collectively, the “Xin Hui Dividends”):
(e) Dividend 1/2015 of US$10m on 21 July 2015, of which US$1m was due to the Deceased; and
(f) Dividend 2/2015 of US$18m on 13 October 2015, of which US$1.8m was due to the Deceased.
[19] Ms Lim and Mr OK Lim asserted that the Deceased repaid Mr OK Lim for the purchase of the Property using Nan Hui Dividends 1, 3 and 4, and the two Xin Hui Dividends (collectively, the “Five Dividends”).
[20] According to Mr OK Lim, before the Deceased received her dividend payouts, she would verbally inform him of the incoming payouts and her intention to use those moneys to repay him, and Mr OK Lim would instruct her to deposit the moneys into the DB Joint Account. The Deceased then directed that these payouts be deposited into the either the DB SGD Joint Account or another Deutsche Bank account in USD jointly held by Mr OK Lim and Ms Lim (“DB USD Joint Account”) depending on currency (collectively, the “DB Joint Accounts”). The total sums deposited were US$3.2m and S$385,000, which amounted to approximately S$4,909,480 using the 2015 average conversion rate of S$1.4139 per USD. This S$4,909,480 sum was allegedly used to repay Mr OK Lim for having expended S$4,701,051.92 as at December 2015 on the purchase price, interest and bank charges for the Property, as well as property taxes and MCST charges, with the surplus to be used to continue financing the property taxes and MCST charges.
Parties’ cases
[21] Mr Pak’s primary claim is that Ms Lim and the Deceased had a common intention for the Property to be held on trust for the sole benefit of the Deceased. He claims that this common intention arose from the express agreement reached between Ms Lim, Mr OK Lim and the Deceased in 2000 or, in the alternative, can be inferred from the parties’ conduct, including the Deceased’s repayment of the purchase price to Mr OK Lim in 2015 and the actions of the Deceased and the Lims with regard to the Property. Mr Pak claims that the Deceased had relied on this common intention to her detriment by taking possession of the Property as her home, committing financial resources to the Property, and not acquiring any other property in her own name. In the event that a common intention constructive trust is not found, Mr Pak claims that a resulting trust arises because the Deceased had provided the entirety of the purchase moneys used to acquire the Property by repaying Mr OK Lim using the Five Dividends. In the further alternative, he seeks a declaration that Ms Lim has been unjustly enriched at the expense of the Deceased by the former’s retention of the legal and beneficial interest in the Property notwithstanding that the Deceased had paid for its purchase, renovation and upkeep.
[22] The PTIBs dispute this version of events, which they contend is self-serving and inconsistent with the positions Ms Lim had taken in other proceedings. The PTIBs argue that there is no credible evidence of the alleged common intention for Ms Lim to hold the Property on trust for the Deceased, nor do they accept the Deceased’s supposed repayment of the purchase price to Mr OK Lim. The PTIBs also challenge the legal viability of Mr Pak’s resulting trust claim as the Deceased’s purported repayments to Mr OK Lim were made pursuant to an agreement that was made years after the purchase of the Property. Thus, on Mr Pak’s own case, there was no agreement between parties at the time of acquisition. Further, since there is no evidence of the Deceased’s repayment of the purchase price of the Property, there is no enrichment to ground an unjust enrichment claim. There is also no unjust factor to speak of.
Issues to be determined
[23] The following issues arise for my determination:
(a) Did Ms Lim, Mr OK Lim and the Deceased have a common intention for the Property to be held on trust for the sole benefit of the Deceased?
(b) If the answer to (a) is no, did a resulting trust arise over the Property in favour of the Deceased?
(c) If the answer to both (a) and (b) is no, was Ms Lim unjustly enriched at the Deceased’s expense?
[24] Ordinarily, where claims of both a common intention constructive trust and a presumed resulting trust are made, the six-step analytical framework set out by the Court of Appeal in [160] of Chan Yuen Lan v See Fong Mun [2014] 3 SLR 1048 (“Chan Yuen Lan”) applies. The starting point of that analysis is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence of the parties’ respective financial contributions to the purchase price giving rise to a presumption of resulting trust, followed by an examination of whether there is sufficient evidence of a common intention to hold the beneficial interest in proportions which are different from that of their respective contributions to the purchase price: Chan Yuen Lan at [160(a)]–[160(b)]. Nonetheless, the courts in later decisions have noted that the analysis need not always proceed in this strict sequence, as the foremost claim in practice is usually a common intention constructive trust, with a resulting trust being the backstop claim: Er Kok Yong v Tan Cheng Cheng [2023] SGHC 58 (“Er Kok Yong”) at [22], citing Ng So Hang v Wong Sang Woo [2018] SGHC 162 at [24].
[25] That was the case in these proceedings as well. As Mr Pak has advanced a common intention constructive trust as his primary claim, I deal with this issue first before turning to consider his resulting trust and unjust enrichment claims.
The claim for a common intention constructive trust
Legal principles
[26] A common intention constructive trust arises when it is “clear that there is a common intention among the parties as to how their beneficial interests are to be held” (Su Emmanuel v Emmanuel Priya Ethel Anne [2016] 3 SLR 1222 (“Su Emmanuel”) at [83]), and there is detrimental reliance on that common intention (Ong Chai Soon v Ong Chai Koon [2022] 2 SLR 457 (“Ong Chai Soon”) at [39]). There are broadly three scenarios in which a common intention may arise: (a) from an express discussion between parties; (b) from an inference based on direct financial contributions made to the purchase price of the property; or (c) in exceptional situations, from other conduct which gives rise to an implied common intention: Jenny Prawesti v Sauw Tjiauw Koe [2025] SGHC 209 (“Jenny Prawesti”) at [26], citing Chan Yuen Lan at [97] and Ong Chai Soon at [34]–[35].
[27] Whether a common intention is said to be express or implied, there must be sufficient and compelling evidence of such intention: Su Emmanuel at [83]. Particularly in a case like the present, where a trust is claimed in respect of property registered in the name of a bankrupt, the evidence must be assessed with especial caution, as the effect of allowing such a claim would be to exclude the property from the pool for distribution to the bankrupt’s creditors. In this respect, I echo the observations of Mohamed Faizal JC (as he then was) in Lim Yan Yi Michelle v Leow Quek Shiong [2025] SGHC 118 (“Michelle Lim”), which was another case involving claims of a trust over property held by one of the Lims (in that case, three insurance policies held by Mr Evan Lim), at [1]:
Analysis and decision
[28] Mr Pak’s claim was not that a trust arose over the Property at the point of purchase in 1997, but that a subsequent common intention constructive trust arose in or around 2000 when Ms Lim, Mr OK Lim and the Deceased agreed that Ms Lim would take Unit #10-01, the Deceased would take the beneficial ownership of the Property, and Mr OK Lim would fund the purchase of the Property with the Deceased paying him back when she was financially able to.
[29] I accept that unlike a resulting trust, a common intention constructive trust need not crystallise at the point of acquisition and can arise pursuant to a subsequent common intention to vary the parties’ beneficial interests: Jenny Prawesti at [80], citing Chan Yuen Lan at [160(f)] and Su Emmanuel at [83]. However, I reject Mr Pak’s claim of a common intention constructive trust as I find that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of any agreement for Ms Lim to hold the Property on trust for the Deceased.
Common intention unsupported by any documentary evidence
[30] As a start, Mr Pak conceded that he had no personal knowledge of “the legal, financial or transactional arrangements surrounding the purchase of the [P]roperty”. His case on the purported express agreement made between his late mother, his aunt and his grandfather in 2000 rested almost entirely on Ms Lim and Mr OK Lim’s account of events.
[31] However, the evidence of Mr OK Lim and Ms Lim on the alleged agreement consisted of bare and unverifiable assertions that were unsupported by any contemporaneous records. Neither was able to produce any incidental documentation or other evidence in writing, such as a WhatsApp message or email, that recorded the alleged agreement for Ms Lim to hold the Property on trust for the Deceased. Even if it is common for familial trust arrangements to remain undocumented by formal trust deeds (a point which I note may not be entirely accurate as far as the Lim family was concerned: see [130] below), it is difficult to believe that, if a trust arrangement existed, not a single message passed between any of the Lims during the preceding two decades which at least went some way towards corroborating their allegation that the family always regarded the Property as belonging to the Deceased.
[32] To the extent that Ms Lim suggested that the Property had to be registered in her name initially because of discussions with the Developers, no evidence of these purported discussions, or of any contemporaneous correspondence with the Developers, was placed before me.
[33] On the contrary, the available documentary evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Ms Lim held both the legal and beneficial interest in the Property. Ms Lim was the one who signed the SPA, the Property was registered in her name, the mortgage was taken out solely in her name, and the mortgage payments were made from the DB SGD Joint Account of which she was a joint account-holder. Even if I accept that most of these acts took place in 1997, before the alleged common intention came about in 2000, nothing changed after that. The mortgage payments continued to be made from the DB SGD Joint Account, the statements of account for the Property were still sent only to Ms Lim, and Ms Lim continued to arrange for payment of the MCST fees and property tax for the Property (at least until 2024).
Common intention inconsistent with Ms Lim’s declarations of her assets in related proceedings
[34] To make matters worse, I agree with the PTIBs that Ms Lim’s assertion of the purported trust over the Property is hopelessly inconsistent with the positions she had taken in other proceedings (the relevant records from these other proceedings were adduced as evidence in the present action, by both Ms Lim and the PTIBs).
[35] After the Deceased passed away in June 2017, Ms Lim and Mdm Tan, as the joint administrators of the Deceased’s estate, filed a schedule of assets in P 294 on 19 October 2018 (“Probate 2018 Affidavit”). Notably, this schedule of assets did not include the Property, even though the Lims claim that it was beneficially owned by the Deceased since 2000.
[36] Almost three years later, after the Mareva injunction was made against her (see [4] above), Ms Lim filed her 11th affidavit in S 805 dated 17 June 2021 exhibiting a schedule of all her assets (“Mareva 2021 11th Affidavit”). This schedule listed the Property as being “[h]eld solely by [Ms Lim]” with no indication of any trust. This was followed by Ms Lim’s 12th affidavit in S 805 dated 25 June 2021, which similarly exhibited a schedule of assets describing the Property as “[h]eld solely by [Ms Lim]”. I refer to these two affidavits collectively as the “Mareva 2021 Affidavits”.
[37] Ms Lim only did a volte-face and formally disclaimed beneficial ownership of the Property on 16 September 2024 in her 24th affidavit in S 805 (“Mareva 2024 Affidavit”). This affidavit was filed more than three years after her earlier affidavits in S 805 and shortly before the consent judgments were entered and Ms Lim filed for bankruptcy.
[38] Ms Lim explained in her Mareva 2024 Affidavit that she had “inadvertently” included the Property in the Mareva 2021 Affidavits and was now changing her position as she had since been “reminded” by Mr Pak that the Deceased was the beneficial owner of the Property. Ms Lim also referred to a letter of demand dated 30 July 2024 issued by HHP on Mr Pak’s behalf against her, taking the position that she held the Property on trust for the Deceased and should have conveyed it to Mr Pak when he turned 21 years old in 2018 (“LOD”).
[39] Four days later, in P 294, Ms Lim filed a joint affidavit with Mdm Tan dated 20 September 2024 (“Probate 2024 Affidavit”) to amend the schedule of assets of the Deceased’s estate to include the Property. This joint affidavit explained that the previous omission of the Property from the Probate 2018 Affidavit was “inadvertent” as Ms Lim and Mdm Tan “mistakenly thought, at the time, that, since the [Property] was in [Ms Lim]’s name on trust for [Mr Pak], it need not be included in the Schedule of Assets and could be transferred to [Mr Pak] at any time after he turns 21 years old”.
[40] Less than a month later, in B 3859 which was Ms Lim’s bankruptcy application, she declared in the Bankruptcy 2024 Affidavit that the Property was held on trust for Mr Pak (see [7] above).
[41] I agree with the PTIBs that Ms Lim’s explanations for her change in position in 2024 were self-serving and internally inconsistent. First, the Mareva 2024 and Probate 2024 Affidavits simply cannot be reconciled with each other. The former suggested that Ms Lim had forgotten that the Deceased was the beneficial owner of the Property and therefore had to be “reminded” by Mr Pak, whereas the latter took the position that Ms Lim always knew that the Deceased was the beneficial owner but erroneously assumed that it need not be listed as an asset for the Deceased’s estate. These are conflicting accounts which go directly toward Ms Lim’s knowledge of the Deceased’s beneficial ownership over the Property. Indeed, it is striking that Ms Lim could not even provide a consistent account across two affidavits filed four days apart. When confronted with this inconsistency at trial, she could only make a feeble attempt to distinguish the Mareva and probate matters as “separate thing[s]”. In my assessment, Ms Lim’s inability to offer a coherent explanation for her previous declarations is telling, as it underscores how disingenuous her change in position was.
[42] Second, the explanations in the Mareva 2024 and Probate 2024 Affidavits are inconsistent with other evidence provided by Ms Lim in these proceedings. In so far as the Mareva 2024 Affidavit suggested that Ms Lim had forgotten that the Property was held on trust for the Deceased until 2024, this is inconsistent with her own AEIC, which states that she had made payment for MCST charges for the Property from April to June 2021 “on behalf of [Mr Pak]”. This must have been premised on her recognition, and thus awareness, of his alleged beneficial ownership in 2021, which was the same time she filed her Mareva 2021 Affidavits declaring the Property as her own.
[43] Moreover, Ms Lim belatedly suggested on the stand that the Property was excluded from the Probate 2018 Affidavit and the Mareva 2021 Affidavits pursuant to legal advice. For the Probate 2018 Affidavit, she explained that she and Mdm Tan had not included the Property in the schedule of the Deceased’s assets because they had been told by their lawyer that it did not need to be included as it was not in the Deceased’s name. This was another subtle shift in her evidence, in so far as Ms Lim now appeared to be suggesting that their previous erroneous assumption was made pursuant to legal advice. Putting aside the implausibility of any lawyer suggesting that assets beneficially held by the Deceased did not need to be listed as assets of the Deceased’s estate, Ms Lim never alluded to any such advice in her AEIC for the present action, nor was any evidence of this advice ever tendered.
[44] As for the Mareva 2021 Affidavits, Ms Lim asserted that she had in fact raised the existence of the trust over the Property with a Senior Counsel (whom she claimed to have consulted regarding S 805), but he advised her that she needed to have a trust document. As she did not have one, she “just kept quiet” and proceeded to declare the Property as belonging solely to her in her Mareva 2021 Affidavits. This new account suggests even more strongly that the contents of her Mareva 2024 Affidavit were false as, on her own case, her omission of the trust in 2021 was not “inadvertent” but a deliberate decision made after receiving legal advice.
[45] On this note, I observe that Ms Lim had a tendency to fall back on purported legal advice to explain her previous inconsistent positions. Yet conspicuously, no evidence of any such legal advice was ever produced, nor were the lawyers she named ever approached or called as witnesses to corroborate her claims.
[46] Third, Ms Lim’s contemporaneous conduct at the time of the Mareva 2021 Affidavits and the Probate 2018 Affidavit did not indicate that she had considered the Property as being held on trust for the Deceased. As the PTIBs’ counsel pointed out, Ms Lim had declared other assets as being held on trust in the Mareva 2021 11th Affidavit, such as her 10% shareholding in An Ping Shipping Pte Ltd and her 100% shareholding in Daichi Shipmanagement Pte Ltd. I agree that this further undermines Ms Lim’s claim that there was a common intention for the Property to be held on trust for the Deceased, since she noticeably did not declare the purported trust even as she declared the existence of other trusts at the same time. While this omission could perhaps have been explained on the basis that the shares were assets held by others on trust for Ms Lim (unlike the Property which Ms Lim claimed to hold on trust for the Deceased), this explanation rings hollow as Ms Lim had in 2021 also disclosed other assets that she held on trust for Mr Pak, namely, AIA insurance policies which were transferred from the Deceased to her after the Deceased passed away. That she did not disclose the same for the Property is highly suggestive that the common intention constructive trust being claimed now is a mere afterthought.
[47] As for the Probate 2024 Affidavit, while Ms Lim explained that the Property was excluded as it could simply be transferred to Mr Pak any time after he turned 21 years old, this does not advance her case much further because it does not explain why no such transfer was effected when Mr Pak came of age on 1 August 2018, or any time after that until the present action. I elaborate more on this from [124] onwards, where I consider the other indicia of a common intention constructive trust that Mr Pak relied on.
[48] I pause at this juncture to emphasise that a witness giving evidence on affidavit must do so with utmost solemnity and integrity. An affidavit is a signed statement of facts made under oath, where the deponent attests to the truth of the statements made therein, or at least what the deponent believes to be true. The same goes for oral testimony. When a party deposes to a certain version of events in one set of proceedings, she should expect to be held to that sworn position: Teo Han Siang v Lim Eng Keong [2026] SGHCR 12 at [42]. If, in a subsequent proceeding, she seeks to retract her earlier sworn statement and advance a fundamentally different version of events, but provides no cogent explanation for this change of position, this will not bode well for the court’s assessment of her credibility.
[49] Finally, the various inconsistencies in Ms Lim’s evidence above must be viewed in light of the timing of the Mareva 2024 and Probate 2024 Affidavits. It is suspect that the trust was only asserted and the amendments made shortly before the Lims were ordered to pay substantial damages to multiple claimants in other suits: see [4] above. As these orders were handed down by way of consent judgments, there must have been discussions on the terms of the consent judgments in the months leading up to September 2024. In other words, Ms Lim must have been aware that her bankruptcy was imminent as she would soon be made liable for damages in the billions. Seen in this context, it strains credulity to believe that Ms Lim only coincidentally realised that she did not own the beneficial interest in the Property during this period.
The Deceased did not repay Mr OK Lim for the Property
[50] Another key plank of Mr Pak’s case was that the Deceased had repaid Mr OK Lim for the Property by transferring the Five Dividends into the DB Joint Account.
[51] It is common ground that the S$4,476,995 that was paid for the purchase of the Property came from the DB SGD Joint Account and the SFL Loan, all of which were financed by Mr OK Lim. The issue is whether, as Mr Pak claims, the Deceased repaid this sum to Mr OK Lim pursuant to their earlier agreement in 2000, such that an inference of a common intention can be drawn based on the Deceased’s financial contributions to the purchase price.
(1) The Five Dividends were not repayments
[52] While Mr Pak’s case was that the Five Dividends represented the Deceased’s repayments to Mr OK Lim, I do not find this to be borne out by the evidence.
[53] In the first place, Ms Lim conceded that there was no contemporaneous record of how much was paid from the DB SGD Joint Account towards the Property. Without taking any steps to keep track of how much was even owed by the Deceased, coupled with Ms Lim’s admission that she never told the Deceased exactly how much to repay, it is difficult to see how this court should accept that there was any prior agreement to repay Mr OK Lim at all, let alone make a finding that the Five Dividends represented the Deceased’s repayments of the sum owed to Mr OK Lim.
[54] There are also discrepancies in Mr Pak’s case on the repayments, which again relied entirely on the unverifiable accounts of Ms Lim and Mr OK Lim.
[56] However, even after accounting for the property taxes and MCST charges, the numbers still do not tally as the sum of the Five Dividends is still S$120,356 in excess of all the expenses flowing from the purchase of the Property. There is no mention in Ms Lim’s AEIC of using the further surplus to continue financing the MCST charges and property taxes after 2020.
[57] Mr Pak also failed to explain why the court should ignore Nan Hui Dividend 2 as well as the other transfers into the DB Joint Account which took place in 2015.
[58] In his statement of claim, Mr Pak pleaded that the Five Dividends (excluding Nan Hui Dividend 2) were transferred to the DB Joint Account as repayment for the Property. In her AEIC, Ms Lim only produced records of Nan Hui Dividends 1, 3 and 4, even though Nan Hui Dividend 2 was also declared in 2015. In her supplementary AEIC, Ms Lim explained that she had omitted Nan Hui Dividend 2 because she did not have the records of the S$160,000 payment. Ms Lim then stated that the S$160,000 from Nan Hui Dividend 2 also formed part of the Deceased’s repayment to Mr OK Lim for the purchase of the Property. Mr Pak confirmed in oral closing submissions that his revised case was that all six dividends (ie, the Five Dividends plus Nan Hui Dividend 2) represented the Deceased’s repayments for the Property. However, this only adds to the unexplained surplus above. If Nan Hui Dividend 2 is included, the surplus would increase to S$280,356. Mr Pak gave no real explanation for the discrepancy in oral closing submissions, save to argue that there was no need to be exact in the figures for intra-familial loans, unlike commercial loans. Even if I am prepared to accept this rather convenient explanation, the variance came up to almost S$300,000. Bearing in mind that Mr Pak bears the burden of proving his pleaded case that the dividends were used by the Deceased to repay Mr OK Lim for the Property, I find it difficult to accept that they could be said to represent sufficient and compelling evidence of the alleged common intention, when the figures are so far apart.
[59] Mr Pak’s case is further undermined by his failure to account for the other transfers into the DB SGD Joint Account in 2015 (apart from the payouts from the Five Dividends) which were redacted in the records produced by Ms Lim. Mr Pak’s only response was to attribute the redactions to Ms Lim, as he claimed to have extracted the records from Ms Lim’s affidavits in P 294 and S 805. Without a complete picture of the movements into the DB SGD Joint Account during the same period, it is difficult to see why the court should accept Mr Pak’s contention that the identified dividends represented the Deceased’s repayment of the sums expended by Mr OK Lim on the Property.
[60] The PTIBs also pointed out that there were unexplained cheque payments totalling S$1.791m from the DB SGD Joint Account to the Deceased in May 2015. Ms Lim sought to characterise this S$1.791m and another S$450,000 that was withdrawn from the DB SGD Joint Account (totalling S$2.241m) as moneys that Mr OK Lim gave to the Deceased to enable her to pay a civil penalty to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (“MAS”). The MAS had imposed a penalty of S$2.241m on the Deceased sometime in April 2015 for insider trading as the Deceased had purchased 892,000 shares in Singapore Petroleum Company (“SPC”) in 2009 whilst in possession of price‑sensitive and non‑public information.
[62] On this note, I also observe that Ms Lim contradicted her father’s evidence and suggested under cross‑examination that Mr OK Lim had given the Deceased the money to purchase the SPC shares in 2009. There is, to my mind, no need for me to determine whether Mr OK Lim financed the Deceased’s purchase of the SPC shares. Either way, I accept that it was not improbable that Mr OK Lim gave his daughter S$2.241m to pay the civil penalty. The timing and quantum of the withdrawals from the DB SGD Joint Account are consistent with the civil penalty imposed by the MAS. Nonetheless, the differing accounts of Mr OK Lim and Ms Lim on crucial details surrounding the insider trading case further undermined the credibility of Mr Pak’s most material witnesses.
(2) The dividends were not beneficially owned by the Deceased
[63] I would add that I have serious doubts that the Deceased was even the beneficial owner of the Nan Hui and Xin Hui shares from which the dividends were derived. It is not disputed that the Deceased was the registered holder of these shares and that the dividend payment vouchers were addressed to her, but these are not determinative of the Deceased’s beneficial ownership of the shares and the associated dividend income. In fact, I note that the dividend payouts were made directly to the DB Joint Account held by Mr OK Lim and Ms Lim, and never touched the Deceased’s personal account. While the dividend payment vouchers stated “Pay to: Lim Huey Yih [ie, the Deceased]”, each voucher recorded a specific DB cheque number for payment and these numbers matched the cheques that were credited into the DB Joint Account.
[64] Both Mr OK Lim and Ms Lim asserted that these deposits were made pursuant to the Deceased’s instructions for her dividend payouts to be transferred to Mr OK Lim as reimbursement for the purchase of the Property. However, there is no documentary record or other evidence in writing (such as an annotation to the payment vouchers) to corroborate this. Ms Lim insisted that the Deceased had given verbal instructions to the staff processing the payments to deposit the cheques into the DB Joint Account “to repay my father”, yet none of these staff members were called as witnesses to corroborate this account. Considering matters in the round, I am unable to accept Ms Lim’s bare and self-serving assertion that the Deceased had instructed the payment administration staff to deposit the dividend payouts into the joint account to repay her father.
[65] The PTIBs suggest that the more logical explanation for this flow of funds is that the true beneficial owner of the Deceased’s Nan Hui and Xin Hui shares was Mr OK Lim himself. To make good this argument, counsel pointed to the transfer of the Deceased’s Nan Hui and Xin Hui shares to Ms Lim and Mr Evan Lim respectively on 23 June 2017. I agree with the PTIBs that two aspects of the transfers are particularly questionable.
[66] First, the transfers took place six days before the Deceased’s death, when she was gravely ill and hospitalised in the Intensive Care Unit (“ICU”). The transfers must have been effected by a share transfer form signed by both transferor and transferee, but Ms Lim testified that she did not get the Deceased to sign such a form in the ICU and Mr Evan Lim did not even recall that the transfers took place at the time. Further, both Ms Lim and Mr Evan Lim testified that the transfer forms could have been pre‑signed by the Deceased.
[67] It transpired during trial that there was a practice within Hin Leong of having shareholders pre‑sign transfer forms, leaving the transferee’s name blank and filling it in later under Mr OK Lim’s instructions. This can be seen from Ms Lim’s schedule of assets in her Mareva 2021 11th Affidavit, where she declared several shareholdings which third parties held on trust for her, and appended trust declarations which had been pre‑signed by these third parties with the name of the beneficial owner left blank, eg, Ms Lim stated that the 10% shareholding in An Ping Shipping Pte Ltd in Ms Seng Hui Choo’s name was held on trust for her, and the declaration of trust stated “[t]he purchase price for the said 5,000 shares was fully paid by [blank] (hereinafter called ‘The Beneficial Owner’)”. The same can be observed in Mr Evan Lim’s schedule of assets in his 11th affidavit for S 805, where he had also declared certain shareholdings which third parties held on trust for him and appended pre‑signed trust declarations, eg, Mr Evan Lim stated that the 10% shareholding in An Ding Shipping Pte Ltd in Ms Koh Guek Lan’s name was held on trust for him. The trust declaration contained the signature “Koh Guek Lan” but the field for the beneficiary’s name was blank.
[68] When these pre‑signed trust declarations were brought to their attention, both Ms Lim and Mr Evan Lim accepted that it was their father, Mr OK Lim, who would decide who the beneficial owner of the shares should be. This is clear from Ms Lim’s cross‑examination:
[69] Mr Evan Lim admitted as much in his cross‑examination:
[70] In light of the above evidence, Mr OK Lim’s assertion that the Deceased “ha[d] the authority” to transfer her shares and that he was personally unaware of the transfer of the Deceased’s shares in 2017 cannot be believed.
[71] Given this admitted practice in Hin Leong, coupled with the Deceased’s poor health at the time of the transfer of her Nan Hui and Xin Hui shares, I find it extremely unlikely the transfer of the Deceased’s shares in 2017 could have taken place on her directions. The only logical explanation which coheres with the evidence is that these transfers were undertaken entirely at Mr OK Lim’s behest and on his directions, because all the parties involved treated the shares as being beneficially owned and controlled by Mr OK Lim. This is clear from Ms Lim’s cross-examination:
[72] As Ms Lim conceded, since Mr OK Lim had the power to solely decide whose names the various shares should be held in, it follows that it was also Mr OK Lim who would solely decide who the accompanying dividends should be credited to. The upshot of this is that the dividends earned on the Nan Hui and Xin Hui shares would not even have belonged to the Deceased to begin with, such that her transfer of the dividends to Mr OK Lim could be credited as her repayment of the purchase moneys. Put simply, the dividends were likely directly credited to Mr OK Lim as he was the beneficial owner of the shares.
[73] This is reinforced by the second questionable aspect of the transfers of the Deceased’s shares in 2017, which is the amounts purportedly paid for the transfers. Based on the Nan Hui and Xin Hui registers of members in the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority’s records, the Deceased’s shares were transferred at par value. Her 50,000 Nan Hui shares were transferred to Ms Lim for S$50,000, and her 5,000 Xin Hui shares were transferred to Mr Evan Lim for S$5,000. This is notwithstanding that the dividends declared by Nan Hui and Xin Hui on those same shares in just a single year were in the millions: see [18] above.
[74] While I accept Mr Pak’s point that consideration need only be sufficient but not adequate as a matter of law (Gay Choon Ing v Loh Sze Ti Terence Peter [2009] 2 SLR(R) 332 at [97]), the issue is not whether there was valid consideration for the share transfers. Instead, the amount of consideration is relevant to assessing whether these were in fact genuine transfers of shares beneficially owned by the Deceased, or whether the transfers were part of the Lims’ practice of shuffling shares beneficially owned by Mr OK Lim around, under the patriarch’s directions.
[75] In cross‑examination, Ms Lim said that she did not pay the Deceased the S$50,000 for the Nan Hui shares as she had “left all this to [the] corporate manager … who would be acting on the instructions and approval of [her] father”. When probed on whether the S$50,000 consideration for the transfer of the Nan Hui shares to her was an undervalue, she eventually conceded that it was:
[76] Ms Lim’s first few evasive responses, redirecting counsel’s questions to her father and corporate manager, already substantiate the contention that Mr OK Lim was the controlling mind behind the transfer. Her evidence that she did not pay the S$50,000 and that she did not know if the Deceased even received S$50,000 for the transfer lends further force to the PTIBs’ submission that the transfers were a mere “paper exercise”.
[77] For good order, HHP had in their closing submissions objected to PTIBs’ arguments that the Nan Hui and Xin Hui shares beneficially belonged to Mr OK Lim instead of the Deceased, on the basis that these factual assertions were not pleaded. HHP also took issue with the disclosure of the relevant documents to Mr Pak only four days before trial commenced, on 24 July 2026. As a result, HHP argued that Mr Pak did not have fair notice of the new allegations and had no opportunity to investigate the execution of the transfer forms or call further witnesses.
[78] I agree with the PTIBs that these objections are without merit as the issue of the Deceased’s beneficial ownership of the Nan Hui and Xin Hui shares flows directly from Mr Pak’s own pleaded case that the Deceased used the dividends from those shares to repay Mr OK Lim. Logically, this contention can only hold true if the shares were beneficially owned by the Deceased such that she also beneficially owned the associated dividend income, and Mr Pak accepted as much in his oral closing submissions.
[79] In their defence, the PTIBs explicitly pleaded that save for the fact that the relevant dividends were declared by Nan Hui and Xin Hui to the Deceased, the rest of Mr Pak’s contentions were not admitted and Mr Pak was put to strict proof thereof. Having made clear that they did not accept Mr Pak’s suggestion that the dividends represented repayments from the Deceased to Mr OK Lim, it was, in my assessment, not incumbent on the PTIBs to specifically plead the reasons why they did not admit that the dividends were repayments. The pleadings were sufficient to place the matter squarely in issue. Mr Pak could not seriously contend that he was taken by surprise in having to prove his own case, and the PTIBs were plainly entitled to test his evidence.
Claimed repayments inconsistent with Ms Lim’s emails to Advocatus in 2022
[81] Ms Lim was asked at trial why she did not amend her affidavits in S 805 and P 294 earlier, if there was in fact a common intention constructive trust from as early as 2000 as she claimed. Her responses opened a new can of worms.
(1) Privilege
[82] Ms Lim repeatedly asserted during cross-examination that she had communicated with her lawyers in 2022 or 2023 to inform them of the trust and to amend her affidavits but they did not act on her instructions until 2024. This prompted the PTIBs’ instructed counsel, Mr Thio Shen Yi SC (“Mr Thio”), to refer Ms Lim to the emails that she had sent to her then-solicitors, Advocatus Law LLP (“Advocatus”), in 2022.
[83] These emails were disclosed by HHP to Mr Thio’s team via email on the evening before the first day of trial. After Mr Thio had seen the emails and pointed out that he was taking this disclosure to mean that Ms Lim was waiving any privilege over her communications with Advocatus, HHP then sought to retract the disclosure.
[84] When Mr Thio referred Ms Lim to the Advocatus emails, HHP objected on the grounds of privilege although they conceded that HHP did not act for Ms Lim and thus could not claim privilege on her behalf. Ms Lim then took the cue to assert privilege over the same emails on the stand.
[85] I overruled the objection at trial as I found that Ms Lim had impliedly waived privilege over the emails. Although HHP purportedly sought to retract the disclosure of the emails, Ms Lim continued to refer repeatedly to her emails to Advocatus in 2022 on the stand in an attempt to justify her conduct. Where “a party voluntarily puts privileged material before the court”, then as a matter of fairness, “he cannot rely on the advantageous aspects of it to advance his case but claim privilege in respect of the other less advantageous aspects of the [document]”: ARX v Comptroller of Income Tax [2016] 5 SLR 590 (“ARX”) at [65]; see also Tentat Singapore Pte Ltd v Multiple Granite Pte Ltd [2009] 1 SLR(R) 42 at [24], cited in Leong Quee Ching Karen v Lim Soon Huat [2024] 3 SLR 1049 at [49]. While I accept that Ms Lim did not explicitly refer to the specific emails, her repeated assertions on the stand that she had informed her lawyers about the trust in 2022 or 2023 were undisputably references to these very emails. The unfairness that justifies a finding of implied waiver arises from the inconsistency of the privilege‑holder’s act with his subsequent maintenance of privilege: ARX at [67].
[86] Moreover, HHP had intentionally and voluntarily disclosed the emails to Mr Thio’s team. When one discloses documents to an opposing party, one accepts that the documents will lose their confidentiality vis-à-vis that opposing party and that privilege over those documents can no longer be maintained (save where the disclosure was provided only for a limited purpose, was by mistake or stealth or was otherwise unintentional, and the document has not been admitted into evidence): see Colin Liew, Legal Professional Privilege (Academy Publishing, 2nd Ed, 2023) at paras 8.22–8.23, citing Ser Kim Koi v Fulton William Merrell [2008] 2 SLR(R) 1063 at [10], Suppipat v Siam Commercial Bank Public Company Ltd [2022] EWHC 381 (Comm) and Shepherd v Fox Williams LLP [2014] EWHC 1224 (QB). There was no suggestion that HHP’s disclosure was for such a limited purpose. On the contrary, HHP (and Ms Lim) plainly intended to rely on the contents of the emails until Mr Thio suggested that the implications of that reliance could be wider than what they had initially anticipated.
[87] For completeness, Mr Thio had also suggested during trial that Ms Lim could not assert privilege over the emails as against the PTIBs, who were the trustees in bankruptcy of her estate, because: (a) any privilege she can assert arguably “belongs to” the PTIBs, who stand in her shoes; and (b) s 370 of the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018 (2020 Rev Ed) (“IRDA”) allows the PTIBs to seize any privileged document which may be relevant to the administration of the bankruptcy estate.
[88] I first set out the material parts of s 370 of the IRDA:
[89] It is clear that s 370 of the IRDA confers upon trustees in bankruptcy the power to obtain privileged information relating to the bankrupt’s estate or affairs. Each of the provisions above contains a clause expressly authorising the Official Assignee to seize records “including any which would be privileged from disclosure during any proceedings”. These powers extend to trustees in bankruptcy appointed in place of the Official Assignee, as s 39(2) of the IRDA provides that “[u]nless the context otherwise requires, any reference in this Act to the Official Assignee includes a reference to a trustee in bankruptcy”.
[90] Section 370 gives effect to s 369(1) of the IRDA – which requires the Official Assignee to “take possession of the deeds, books and documents which relate to the bankrupt’s estate or affairs”, along with “all other parts of the bankrupt’s property capable of manual delivery” – by empowering the Official Assignee to “take an inventory of and seize any property comprised in the bankrupt’s estate”: Chan Kwong Shing Adrian v Invidia Capital Pte Ltd [2024] 4 SLR 1124 (“Chan Kwong Shing Adrian”) at [16]. These powers are necessary in order for the Official Assignee or a trustee in bankruptcy to perform their statutory function of getting in, realising and distributing the bankruptcy estate.
[91] As s 370 of the IRDA expressly gives the PTIBs the power to obtain privileged information relating to the estate or affairs of the bankrupt, and the emails in question were clearly “books, papers or records” relating to Ms Lim’s bankruptcy estate as they shed light on the specific assets which formed part of her bankruptcy estate, I agree with the PTIBs that Ms Lim is not in a position to assert privilege to avoid disclosure of the emails to them. However, what is less clear is whether it is open to the PTIBs to use this information in court proceedings which would arguably amount to waiving the bankrupt’s privilege to the world at large.
[92] On this note, it is helpful to consider the case of Shlosberg v Avonwick Holdings Ltd [2017] Ch 210 (“Shlosberg”). In that case, a bankrupt applied for an injunction requiring a firm of solicitors (which concurrently acted for both his joint trustees in bankruptcy and his principal creditor) to cease acting for the creditor, as the creditor had sought to bring a claim in conspiracy against the bankrupt and other parties using privileged information obtained by his trustees in bankruptcy pursuant to their powers under s 311(1) of the Insolvency Act 1986 (c 45) (UK) (“UK Insolvency Act”). The injunction was granted at first instance by Arnold J, sitting in the English High Court. Arnold J’s decision was upheld on appeal by Sir Terence Etherton MR, sitting in the English Court of Appeal.
[93] The English Court of Appeal held that on a proper interpretation of the UK Insolvency Act, privilege did not form part of the “property” of a bankrupt which automatically vests in the trustee in bankruptcy. The court reached this conclusion even though the UK Insolvency Act included a provision similar to s 370 of the IRDA in s 311(1), which gave the trustee the power to take possession of “all books, papers and other records which relate to the bankrupt’s estate or affairs … including any which would be privileged from disclosure in any proceedings” [emphasis added]. The English Court of Appeal reasoned that the provisions in the UK Insolvency Act did not expressly treat privilege as “property” of the bankrupt which automatically transferred from the bankrupt to the trustee, nor was this a necessary implication of the vesting provisions in the Act: per Sir Etherton MR at [63].
[94] The English High Court’s decision in Shlosberg was cited with approval by the High Court in Chan Kwong Shing Adrian, where Goh Yihan J (as he then was) noted that the definition of “property” in s 2(1) of the IRDA was similar to the wide definition of property in s 436(1) of the UK Insolvency Act: at [20]. Adopting a purposive approach, Goh J went on to observe that there was much force in limiting the broad width of the definition to potentially exclude property which is “peculiarly personal” to the bankrupt and which “cannot be conceivably sold off to repay creditors”: at [21]. In the words of Arnold J in his decision on the injunction application in Shlosberg, “[a]lthough privilege is enforceable in a court of law, its only effect is to enable the beneficiary of the privilege to resist disclosure of information in proceedings”; privilege “is not a marketable right, it has no commercial value and it cannot be realised or distributed to creditors”: Shlosberg at [121].
[95] Sir Etherton MR, in dismissing the appeal against Arnold J’s decision in Shlosberg, held that it was “necessarily implicit” in s 311(1) of the UK Insolvency Act that the trustee was to take possession of documents (including privileged documents) to fulfil the trustee’s overriding purpose of getting in, realising and distributing the bankrupt’s estate. However, it was “not … necessarily implicit that the trustee can waive the bankrupt’s legal professional privilege in taking steps against third parties for the benefit of the bankrupt’s estate, desirable as that might be from the point of view of the creditors”: per Sir Etherton MR in Shlosberg at [70]–[71].
[96] The English High Court and Court of Appeal in Sholsberg thus drew a distinction between the trustee in bankruptcy obtaining privileged information relating to the bankrupt’s estate and affairs for the statutory purpose of getting in and realising the bankrupt’s estate, and the trustee going further to treat the privilege as property belonging to him and using that same information in a manner which would amount to a waiver of the bankrupt’s privilege, including by deployment in proceedings with third parties.
[97] The distinction was critical in Shlosberg because the bankrupt’s creditor had sought to rely on privileged information obtained by the trustees in bankruptcy pursuant to their statutory powers. The trustees in bankruptcy contended that they had the power to waive privilege over information obtained from the bankrupt, and that allowing third parties to use this privileged information would potentially reduce the claims on the bankruptcy estate, as a successful claim by the creditor against parties other than the bankrupt would correspondingly reduce the creditor’s claim on the bankrupt’s estate. The English Court of Appeal rejected this argument, holding that the trustees could only use information obtained pursuant to their powers under s 311(1) of the UK Insolvency Act in a way which would not amount to a waiver of privilege: per Sir Etherton MR in Shlosberg at [69].
[98] The facts are slightly different in the present case. First, the emails were not obtained by the PTIBs pursuant to their statutory powers. Second, while Mr Pak was a third party, Ms Lim had been the one who voluntarily disclosed the emails to his solicitors, and they had in turn disclosed them to the PTIBs. In so far as Ms Lim’s real objection was to the disclosure of the emails to the PTIBs who were seeking to use that information to fulfil their statutory duties, s 370 of the IRDA provides a complete answer to that objection. However, this does not answer the separate question of whether the PTIBs would have been entitled to use the emails as evidence against Ms Lim’s objections, as deploying them in these proceedings would arguably amount to a waiver of Ms Lim’s privilege to the public at large.
[99] On the one hand, it seems to me somewhat inconsistent to suggest that Parliament intended trustees in bankruptcy to be able to obtain privileged information without the bankrupt’s consent, but not to use that information in any proceedings. The incongruence is particularly stark where the trustees intend to use this information in proceedings to advance the very purpose of the statutory scheme – to enable them to get in, realise and distribute the bankrupt’s estate. Nevertheless, I accept that the English Court of Appeal expressly considered this policy and held that, absent the clearest statutory language, it cannot override the competing public interest in allowing a person to consult their lawyer in confidence, knowing that what they share will never be revealed without their consent. The statutory context under IRDA is substantially similar to that in the UK Insolvency Act, and legal professional privilege is also recognised as a core principle in the administration of justice in Singapore. It is enshrined in statute (see primarily ss 128 and 131 of the Evidence Act 1893 (2020 Rev Ed)) and “has been firmly entrenched as part of the common law system of justice for centuries”: Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (Publ), Singapore Branch v Asia Pacific Breweries (Singapore) Pte Ltd [2007] 2 SLR(R) 367 at [23].
[100] Whether a trustee in bankruptcy may use and deploy privileged material in proceedings against a bankrupt’s objection raises a legal question of real importance to the administration of bankruptcy estates. Resolving it will require the court to ascertain Parliament’s intent against the backdrop of two distinct public policies, both of which are widely accepted as fundamental and compelling, but which pull in separate directions. Interesting though the issue may be, it would not be appropriate for me to express any definitive views here as I did not have the benefit of full legal arguments, since counsel did not address this issue in their written submissions. It was in any case unnecessary for me to decide this point given my earlier finding that Ms Lim had impliedly waived her privilege over the Advocatus emails.
(2) The contents of the emails
[101] Having addressed the issue of privilege, I come to the contents of the two emails sent by Ms Lim to Advocatus in 2022. The first email, sent on 20 April 2022, stated “I am actually holding‑in‑trust the above subject assets [ie, the Property and bank moneys unrelated to this case] for my sister”, and attached payment vouchers for five dividends from Xin Hui and Nan Hui. The second email, sent on 7 November 2022, asked the lawyers to “[p]lease see attachments below regarding my sister’s purchase of [the Property]”, including payment vouchers for five dividends as well.
[102] I accept that the emails corroborate Ms Lim’s case that she had treated the Property as being held on trust for the Deceased at least since 2022. However, they do not explain why no amendments were made to her position on the court record until 2024. According to Ms Lim, Advocatus never replied to her emails which is why her position in S 805 was only corrected in 2024, when “Advocatus finally help me to do this [sic]”.
[103] I find this explanation to be wholly unconvincing. It is in the first place highly implausible that a reputable law firm would ignore their client’s instructions in writing for two years. What is even more difficult for me to accept is that Ms Lim had, in the face of such prolonged silence and inaction on the part of her solicitors, still decided to continue to retain them to act for her. This appears to be yet another instance where Ms Lim conveniently sought to blame her lawyers when she could not satisfactorily explain her own actions.
[104] Even if I accept the statements in the emails at face value and find that Ms Lim had asserted the trust in 2022 (and not just in 2024), this does not lend much further credence to Mr Pak’s case because Hin Leong was already mired in numerous lawsuits during this period. The fact remains that the existence of a trust was only first raised well after Hin Leong’s fraud had unravelled, at a point in time when Ms Lim must have been aware that her assets were at risk from Hin Leong’s numerous creditors. The only gloss the emails add to the picture is to suggest that Ms Lim may well have started testing the waters as to the possibility of shielding the Property from her creditors in 2022 before taking firmer steps to implement the plan in 2024.
[105] Moreover, the contents of the emails introduced further inconsistencies into Mr Pak’s case. As the PTIBs pointed out, the dividends identified in the two emails were different from each other – the first email referred to the Five Dividends, while the second email referred to four of the Five Dividends plus Nan Hui Dividend 2 (instead of Nan Hui Dividend 4). Once again, Ms Lim’s own evidence was internally inconsistent, and the discrepancy was never properly explained. This inconsistency in the identification of the relevant dividends also meant that the sum total of the dividends in the second email (which was calculated to be S$4,381,000, using a conversion rate of S$1.37 per USD) was significantly different from the aggregate S$4,909,480 from the Five Dividends based on Mr Pak’s pleaded case (see [20] above) or S$5,069,480 from the six dividends based on his revised case.
[106] Further, the fact that Ms Lim purported to have referred to Nan Hui Dividend 2 in 2022 contradicts her own supplementary AEIC where she said that she had omitted this dividend from her AEIC because she did not have the records of the S$160,000 withdrawal (see [58] above). She clearly had the payment voucher for Nan Hui Dividend 2 and the corresponding cheque in 2022. Ms Lim’s explanation for the inconsistency between the second 2022 email and her AEIC was to repeat that she “couldn’t locate the 160,000” at the time of her AEIC, which I find to be far from convincing in the face of the evidence.
[107] Given the glaring inconsistencies in the evidence of Ms Lim and Mr OK Lim, I do not find them to be credible witnesses, and am driven to the irresistible conclusion that Mr Pak has failed to discharge his burden of proving that the Five (or six) Dividends were meant to be repayments by the Deceased to Mr OK Lim for the Property. Instead, it appears to me that the dividends were simply cherry-picked ex post to corroborate the case for a trust.
[108] There were other aspects of Mr Pak’s witnesses’ evidence which I found suspect, such as the belated LOD issued by HHP in 2024 demanding that Ms Lim transfer the Property to Mr Pak when he turned 21, when Mr Pak had already turned 21 in 2018. I see much force in the PTIBs’ suggestion that given the timing and circumstances of the LOD, it is more likely that it was part of a paper trail created to persuade the court that the Property did not belong to Ms Lim.
[109] All things considered, I find on a balance of probabilities that the Deceased did not reimburse Mr OK Lim for the purchase price of the Property by using the dividends.
Parties’ subsequent conduct in relation to the Property is equivocal
[110] Having decided that there was no express common intention and no purchase price contribution giving rise to an inferred common intention, there is little room left to infer any common intention. Although an inferred common intention may arise from other forms of conduct in “exceptional situations”, the guidance from the Court of Appeal is that the emphasis should be directed at the direct financial contribution to the purchase price by the person claiming the beneficial interest: Geok Hong Co Pte Ltd v Koh Ai Gek [2019] 1 SLR 908 (“Geok Hong Co”) at [80]–[81].
[111] Nonetheless, I accept that the subsequent conduct of parties can be considered to ascertain their intention which subsisted at the time of acquisition: Tia Sock Kiu Sally v Tia Oon Lai [2026] 1 SLR 453 at [47]. I therefore go on to consider whether there is sufficiently compelling evidence for me to infer a common intention based on the parties’ conduct after the acquisition of the Property.
[112] Mr Pak relied on several indicia of the Deceased’s possession and control over the Property, such as her occupation and renovation of the Property, and his payment of the property taxes and MCST charges for the Property, as manifestations of the Deceased’s beneficial ownership. To my mind, these do not constitute sufficiently compelling evidence of a common intention constructive trust as the parties’ subsequent conduct was ultimately equivocal at best.
(1) The Deceased’s possession and control over the Property is probative but not sufficiently compelling
[113] Mr Pak submits that the “key pointer” of the Deceased’s beneficial ownership of the Property is that Ms Lim never resided in the Property, while the Deceased portrayed the traits of a homeowner when the Property was ready to be taken over from the Developers. This was evidenced by the fact that the handover and defects list for the Property identified the Deceased as the recipient of the handover, the Deceased was given the access card and other keys for the Property, the renovation plans bear the Deceased’s name, and the Deceased also made “structural” changes to the Property in the form of feng shui settings.

The judgment continues past this page. Read the rest at eLitigation.

Pak Juin Tern Denzel (suing as administrator of the estate of Lim Huey Yih, deceased) v Leow Quek Shiong (as private trustee in bankruptcy of Lim Huey Ching) and another

Laws this judgment relies on

Grounds of decision

Introduction

Facts

The parties

The dispute

The purchase and use of the Property

The alleged common intention and repayments by the Deceased

(d) Dividend 4/2015 of US$4m on 3 December 2015, of which US$400,000 was due to the Deceased, and that

Parties’ cases

Issues to be determined

(b) If the answer to (a) is no, did a resulting trust arise over the Property in favour of the Deceased?

(c) If the answer to both (a) and (b) is no, was Ms Lim unjustly enriched at the Deceased’s expense?

The claim for a common intention constructive trust

Legal principles

Analysis and decision

Common intention unsupported by any documentary evidence

Common intention inconsistent with Ms Lim’s declarations of her assets in related proceedings

The Deceased did not repay Mr OK Lim for the Property

(1) The Five Dividends were not repayments

(2) The dividends were not beneficially owned by the Deceased

Claimed repayments inconsistent with Ms Lim’s emails to Advocatus in 2022

(1) Privilege

(2) The contents of the emails

Parties’ subsequent conduct in relation to the Property is equivocal

(1) The Deceased’s possession and control over the Property is probative but not sufficiently compelling