Usually, one would expect court issues to revolve around serious matters such as:
- Burglary
- Attempted murder
- Sexual Harassment
What people don’t really expect the court to handle, however, are cases like:
- Grade-intensified Sexual Harassment
- Forceful removal of shoe cabinets
But hey, as a Wise Old Man once said:
Life isn’t as straightforward as you would perceive. Sometimes it’s a little… curved.
Condo Owners in West Coast Go to Court Over A Shoe Cabinet At The Corridor
A shoe cabinet outside a condominium apartment’s front door. Hardly front-page news, right?
Well, that’s what life would have you believe.
According to The New Paper, the management corporation (MC) at The Infiniti in West Coast Park was so pissed at a unit’s refusal to remove their shoe cabinet from the front door…
…that they actually took the owners of the unit to court.
According to reports, the cabinet, which is situated beside the apartment’s front door, is 1.06m long and 0.36m wide. And the management corporation reportedly took offence with it for a number of alleged reasons, including:
- A decrease in width of the common corridor available for fire escape
- An additional by-law that forbids “storing, leaving or discarded personal belongings in common areas and staircases, regardless of the size, nature, and whether the object obstructs people’s path”
However, the judge has refrained from issuing the court order that will require the unit’s owner to remove the cabinet.
According to The New Paper, the decision stems from a number of factors in contention against the MC’s allegations:
- The cabinet does not obstruct movement in the corridor nor intrude on any person’s rights but to the “most negligible degree”
- The 0.36m-wide cabinet reduced the corridor width to no less than 1.44m, which is legal under the code. In regards to the Singapore Civil Defence Force’s practice code for fire safety precautions, a minimum width of 1.2m is prescribed for corridors in high-rise buildings
- The MC was not even-handed in enforcing its laws, by neglecting to target many other owners who had left personal belongings in the common corridor outside their units. In response, the MC stated that they went after the shoe cabinet first as it was the “newest and largest of the offending cabinets”. It would go after the rest after it succeeded in this particular case. The judge, however, doubted that the MC had actual intentions to correct the other owners
As such, the judge has given its ruling: placing the shoe cabinet in the common corridor might’ve broken the condo’s by-law, but the MC will not get the court order it wants, as such an order would be a “disproportionate” response to the by-law breach.
Additionally, the judge has also taken issue with the MC’s conduct, which he reportedly found “unreasonable and objectionable”.
And So… Now What?
Well for starters, the MC is appealing against the decision, so the end result might yet be ascertained. But what we do know at current time, however…
Is that the shoe cabinet remains outside the unit. Safe and sound. Or in other words…
1-0 for the shoe cabinet, I dare say.
Well, at least this goes to court. In another case, an owner, who bought a condo unit for $1.5 million, went to the social media court for a $10 parking fee imposed by the MC.
Rich people’s lives are really different.
