Rental Guidelines - Singapore

The below guidelines are drafted in making a better living place for innocents in Singapore. These are only guidelines, make appropriate addition and modifications on case to case basis. Don't be a looser in any case.

1. Always go for approved HDB flats or private condominium.
2. Never pay more than 1 month rental deposit and 1 month advance rental when u sign a new contract. Agents commission is half month's rent for housing contract, as the rentals are now sky rocking we should press for 2year contract with half month's agent commission.
3. Avoid taking houses where the owner is letting out flat for 1st time.
4. Avoid taking houses which are unoccupied previously.
5. If a tenant is staying there take feedback from him regarding the owner, house, why he is leaving the house, etc. It is likely that the tenant may tell u something which the owner or agent won't tell you.
6. If the house is approved, always go for a Utility account in your name or else get the original bill from the owner. PUB sometimes gives away discounts on the utility bill which the owner may not pass on to us
7. Do not believe the owner if he says he is going out of country (for work/business) and won't come for 1 year or so. It can so be that he will be in Singapore. Also do not fully trust the agent. He might be involved with the owner in luring you to take the house.
8. I have learnt from reliable sources that there is/are a group of agents who look for owners having money problems. They assure the owners that they can get tenants who are ready to pay advance rents (4/5 months) but in return the owner has to pay them a premium amount above the agent commission. This way the agents earn good money in a single deal. In this case follow point 2 above.
9. Deal only with registered Agents , ask them for their registration number etc.
10. Demand and get your receipts for Agent commission with GST paid, make sure that the receipt hold registration number of the agent. collect the Agent's IC/PR copies as well.
11. Do never trust the owner/agent if they say the rentals are gone high so you need to double to current rental price. Ask the current Tenant how much they pay, if rent quoted looks really high increase, immediately walk out and don't deal with the agent/owner any more. We don't really need to encourage abnormal increment on the rental. After all it's our hard earned money.
12. Never agree for 6month diplomatic clauses saying if you leave before 6 months you need to pay the whole 6 months rent plus deposit etc.
13. While discussing with the police I understood, bank transfer of money could be treated as friendly loan and the owner/agent can escape with this point when there is a problem. Hence even if you do a bank transfer make sure you are getting a receipt for the money you transfer.
14. Do not do a single money transaction without a valid proof/receipt.
15. Never sign a contract in hurry, you may not notice the catch in it. There are plenty of houses, even if you loose one there is always another house awaits for you.
16. Try not to accept visiting a house for inspection with another prospect who is also interested on the house through the same agent. Because some times the Agents are organizing such dirty tricks to make the rentals/bargain high. So, always make sure you are the person only visiting on that time slot. If you happen to visit with many other treat it as high risk in loosing money every month.
17. Never speak to anybody saying the rents are going high, this habit encourages the owners/agents to hike the rents without any limit because we are acting as free advertisement media for them.
18. Trust me there are good amount of Houses are available from JTC for us and approach them for getting the house of your need. Where there is no hassles and truly safe.
19. You can also verify the ownership of the house owner with HDB for the house you are proposed to rent. By doing this you will come to know whether you are dealing with a genuine owner.
20. While getting a furnished house, take the inventory carefully if you have a digital camera take pictures of damages in the house. It may be useful while you leaving the house. Make sure to get the inventory list signed from the Owner/Agency.
21. Make sure the electrical equipments are inspected throughly, if you don't do it then you may have to pay for the problem it had previously.
22. Make sure that you writing on the agreement about the owner's responsibility of repair/maintenance of any goods in the house if the charges/expense going to be above $50.
23. Please for your own interest, take extra caution while dealing with real estate. Also never accept if the above points are not met. Because we all have heard of numerous incidents people loosing money because of their ignorance. It cost a lot!

I really hope and wish you all have a good living experience in Singapore, after all we are here to stay in Uniquely Singapore. I found most of the Singaporean neighbors are friendly with each other, so enjoy your stay!

Your critics are welcome, please find time to fill up some comments here!


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Beware of Housing Frauds in Singapore

It was a very bad experience for my friend who lost huge amount of money ($4600) on a Housing scam in Singapore. The actual experience is that my friend who is also a new comer to Singapore like me wanted to find an accommodation, The housing agents came handy in searching for a house.

In Singapore a general term is that the housing agent gets half a month of commission for finding a house. However they say they help you in dealing with the agreement etc., I found there is no registration etc. for the agreement. It's just a bit of paper written with some rules, also the agreements differs agent to agent. Some times you can find an agent registered and some work with a real estate company to assist.

So, My friend did approach an agent who was referred by one of his friend. The went and a saw a house in Balam road in Block 23. The house owner and the agent both were presented on that day my friend visit the house. The house owner quoted $1200 as monthly rent so the agent commission must by $600. Later on after fixing the rent, the agent and house owner went on a discussion and the agent came back to my friend and told him that if my friend pays 5 months advance rental(never heard of such deal) and 1 month security deposit (it's normal across the island) the owner will let the house for $1000.

Since the offer was attractive to my friend who felt he can save upto $1000 in five months time, he opt for the same and chosen it. He paid $2000 on the day he visited the house, and later on he paid $2000 through bank transfer and promised the owner of the house when he gets the key he will pay the remaining $2000. The agent was also prompt in taking his piece of cake $600 on the spot. The house owner committed he will hand over the house on 20th of August as some one else is already staying the apartment. You know what, after a weeks time, the Agent stopped picking up my friend's calls and the owner totally switched off his hand phone. My friend was in a impression he could get the key before August 20th, The time passed and the day has also came but the situation never changed.

I have joined with my friend to visit the place on August 20th to check if the owner or his representatives stays in the apartment. We got a shock as the tenant is still there on August 20th night 8:00pm. So I rushed to the nearby NPP and asked their assistance, the police called the agent he didn't pickup the call. Luckyly we had his friend's number hence the police called his friend and asked him tell his friend'd to call back. The agent promptly called, and told the police that he had an appointment with us by 9:00pm on the same day. We swear we didn't have any information like that before. So, we agreed to meet him at the location, and he came about 9:45pm saying he will help us raising a complaint, I know he was trying to escape from the situation like an approver however he was so adamant he didn't return the $600 commission as saying that is his service charges for showing the house (????)

We had tough time in getting the complaint report from the police as they said as per rules this needs to be handled with Small Claims court and directed us to the small claims court, however they gave us an incident number, finally we had pushed them to issue us a case report and successfully got it. But I should accept that the police is very friendly in Singapore however they have got some limitations handling such cases. Because of this, it's public's responsibility to be careful to avoid such experiences.

Now, my friend went to the court and they say that the agreement should hold the address of the house owner otherwise they can help and we need to approach the police. You know what my friend finally gave up and gone to his country embassy and asked they intervention in handling the case. He is also planning to approach local news papers to publish his bitter experience so that fellow Singaporean citizens and innocent foreigners will be notified for such acts.

So, guys please be aware Singapore is still low crime country and doesn't mean no crime, however this kind of cheating is treated here are civil case and cannot be counted in crime. I advice everybody to take extra caution before committing any money transactions. There are lots of cases discussed on Housing scams in here, so Beware of housing frauds in Singapore.

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Singapore night

Warning: Don't expect me writing about Gaylang or Orchard tower stories in the space

Actually I wanted to capture the National Day function held in Marina Bay on 9th August 2007, unfortunately I was bit late so I could reach the location only after the function got over. That is how the Singapore night has been found in this blog.
Singapore is a truly colorful country, for whatever function that the nation call for; you can see the Singaporeans wearing red colored t-shirts and dresses. You know what I too have joined with them wearing Singaporean national colored red dress on that day.

My destination to visit in Singapore was primarily the Merlion statue(Lion head and Fish body), and I could do that in the national day of Singapore rather i would say national night of Singapore ;-) Look at the picture below here, this is a baby Merlion statue behind the taller one, you can see the taller back view also from this picture. Between the baby and taller spot the floating stage organised for the national day festival, when I took the picture the function just had completed situation.

The whole country (city) was so excited to celebrate their city's birth anniversary. The story of Singapore known to almost everyone so I'm not gonna repeat once again. Here are some pictures that describes my Singapore night roam.

Marina bay is one of the hi-fi commercial area of Singapore, the most taller building clusters are found here, I still remember seeing this building's pictures in my school notebook covers in India those days. Today I'm here in front of them.

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Singapore Cycle - Disc brakes

The attractive thing about Singapore cycles are the disc brakes(!!). Yeah the Singaporeans are not as interested as Japanese to pedal the cycle but fascinated by their fancy cycles.

There is no parking for cycles also in Singapore, hence most of the places you can see cycles tied with the road side electrical posts or barriers etc. Look at one of the cycle tied in my office wall.

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Team lunch - Singapore

My first team lunch session in Singapore had happen a fortnight before, Indian, Filipinos, Singaporean Chinese, Malay Chinese and Indians were part of the lunch. We have chosen a Filipinos restaurant for our taste buds. Much of us had already experienced Chinese, South and North Indian, Korean, Japanese, Mexican and Junk American food but not that of Filipino's hence the choice.The hotel was located in Marina Square in Singapore, the hotel atmosphere was good and pleasing. You know what the hostess in the hotel was so friendly to ask us about our girl friends (???). Most of the food items were prepared with Pork and that is a reason for my Indian colleague to feel uncomfortable. Actually he is a vegetarian and you know what he had finished his lunch with appetizers.

The next team lunch was in Park Royal hotel, this time it is grand team lunch due to our manager visit from US. It was a buffet lunch and we had more than 100 variety of dishes to eat. I couldn't resist to control my diet, so much of items and so good.I'm thinking what if my manager comes weekly once, ;-) ha ha ha...

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Jungle made of Concrete - Singapore

Singara Singapore (Beautiful Singapore) is here, welcome to Singapore blog tour. A multi culture, colourful modern Asia not far from this blog post ;-). Almost I have completed 1 and half months life in Singapore a place where you can see Chinese, Malay, Tamil languages spoken widely and a true cosmopolitan city. One can go to a Hindu temple or Masque or Chinese temple or celebrate the festivals of any religion together with other friend.
Go out for shopping? Don't forget Singapore shoppers have discounts and cushion bargain attached to their tags. International warranties, expo, shopping festival are the widely known mantra to the marketing plans. You will get to see one or other exhibition or festival throughout the year (though I have not completed even a quarter year in Singapore, but heard by word of mouth). Low crime (I can see taxi's stick bills with words like "low crime doesn't mean no crime"), beautiful Asian girls, clean roads are always attractions too.

There are many things to share with you, Singapore looks alike great jungle made of concrete with rivers like tar roads taking ups and downs while turning left and right curves, the cars and automobiles are fishes in the tar rivers. I stay in the center spot of Singapore called Toa Payoh and you know one of the largest tar river in Singapore concrete jungle right next to my apartment. They call it as PIE (Pan Island Expressway), this one connect Singapore's west to east vice versa and runs for maximum of 42.8kms long. Have a look at day and night pictures of this scenic PIE river's pictures here.

I could see in many aspects Japanese and Singaporeans lifestyle are matching very closely. First they both have very small land particularly Singapore has a land lesser than Chennai (South Indian Metro City), hence many times i get confused how to address Singapore as a city or country. Hey guys no harm, just expression of my thought.

Fun rides, zoos, bird and animal watching, cheap electronic items, theme parks, fun rides, balloon ride what else; of course movies are most preferred way of entertainment in here. If anybody talks about Singapore i don't think they will forget to talk about their hawker shops (Petti kadai in Tamil) which are serving authentic Indian, Chinese, Western and Malay foods all the time. They are cheap and taste good.. Really!

Not to forget, Singapore's most criticised objects are the govt fine $$$ boards." You do this you will end up paying this", "you do that you may have to pay so much","if you have this much you can try doing it" are some examples. Keep watching great fun ahead! Uniquely Singapore is here with you.

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Explorer's Jeep (Willys CJ2A)

Hi Surfers, I'm back again after tooooooo long interval. But this is unavoidable for me.

My Tiger (Willy CJ2A 1946) is now standing on his foot with full power. I have to change the top portion of the jeep to a flexible one for folding, removal etc. Also minor tinkering and painting job to make it look better.
The Jeep had also gone for a Engine transplantation with more powerful Peoguot engine. Yes the jeep is fully ready and doing great. There couple of modification I was doing with it, as I have mentioned earlier I thought that I would take this jeep for Indian explorer program.
You know some times our plans may be doomed by the time, this happen to me. I will not be able to keep up my plan as Indian explorer for another 3-5 years. Because I'm now relocated to Singapore the Lion City.

But I did visit palani as a part of my plan and made my smaller article for you people. It was nice experience however I had to choose a bad weather (43degree celcious) and we have almosted boiled.

Look at this space for my detailed blog about the palani visit, I hope I would do it today or tomorrow. I'm still collecting information for singapore blog because I myself new here and not started to explore anything yet.

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