On 13 December 2021, the Singapore court charged Chinese national – Chen Xiaopu, 39 – for allegedly getting a Singaporean – Song Fanrong – to buy restricted property in Singapore on his behalf in 2014. The property in question is a landed freehold unit in Ang Mo Kio’s Belgravia Villas.
According to the report, Song allegedly offered to buy the property first and then transfer ownership to Chen once he obtains Singapore citizenship or permanent residency. Police said that Chen “purportedly accepted the offer and made a partial payment to the Singaporean nominee”.
Referencing Singapore Land Authority’s site, a foreign person who wishes to purchase a landed residential property must first seek approval under the Residential Property Act before he or she can buy certain properties.
These restricted properties include vacant residential land, terrace houses, semi-detached houses, bungalows, detached houses, strata landed houses that are not within an approved condominium development and non-commercial shophouse.
While this particular report did not explain how the Singaporean buyer – Song Fanrong – first got in trouble with Chen, this earlier Straits Times article from 2017 did.
Apparently, Miss Song Fanrong, 49, is a naturalised Singapore citizen who is originally from China, and was sued for S$9.5m by three Chinese businessmen – one of whom is Chen Xiaopu – for alleged fraud. The three men were friends who made their millions in real estate and had signed contracts with Song to help them move to Singapore under a purported scheme.
The businessmen alleged that this “supposed scheme” required at least $500,000 worth of investments in a Singapore company. So one of them paid more than $610,000 to Song. Another invested $798,500 in Song’s kindergarten business, while Chen paid $2.1m. The three also claimed that Song persuaded them to buy four semi-detached units at Belgravia Villas, which led to the recent charge on Chen.
Immediately, we can tell why owning one of these units would appeal to the businessmen.
Located at 200 Belgravia Drive, off Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, the luxurious residential development resides in a quiet neighbourhood within District 28 (Yio Chu Kang, Seletar). It consists of a cluster of 18 semi-detached houses and 100 terrace houses with each plot having two parking lots each.
Completed in 2018, the cluster of freehold landed units offer quite a range of facilities, including numerous swimming pools, lounges and gardens. The property is close to Fernvale MRT and schools like Da Qiao, Serangoon Garden Secondary and Rosyth.
Anyway, the three businessmen alleged that Song misled them into the belief that she could help them apply for Singapore permanent residency or citizenship, through her connections, including as a chairman of a government-supported association founded by Sun Yat-sen and that her Singaporean husband, Teo Kuei Yang, 52, was the brother of the Deputy PM.
In 2016, as Chairman of Friedrich Frobel Holding, Song made a personal donation of S$1m worth of Friedrich Frobel Holding’s shares to support Sian Chay Medical Institution’s charity causes.
Eventually, when the three Chinese businessmen found out that the agreements had no legal stature, and the minimum investment under the actual scheme was only S$50,000, they filed charges against her for fraudulent misrepresentation.
Despite a court order to freeze her assets under the Mareva injunction, Song went ahead to sell 2 per cent of her stake in her kindergarten business – which included the 8 Buttercups and Frobel preschools in Pasir Panjang, Rochester Drive, Kallang, Woodlands and a few other locations. This led to her punishment for contempt of court and jail sentencing.
The sudden closure of several of her preschools in September 2017 resulted in affected parents and kids looking for alternative preschools and refunds – including assistance from MacPherson MP Tin Pei Ling for those affected in her ward. By October, four more preschools were shuttered.
Later on in November that year, Song was reportedly punished with an additional month of jail time for trying to sell her kindergarten business again. This time, her husband, Teo, was also found guilty of contempt and sentenced to two weeks’ jail. The couple has two children, aged 14 and 15. Song had applied for bankruptcy earlier that same month.
In hindsight, if the three businessmen had urgently wanted to buy landed property in Singapore, they probably should have considered Sentosa Cove, which is exempt from the restriction. For foreigners, the Sentosa Cove property must not exceed 1,800 sqm (19,375 sqft) and be purchased solely for their own occupation and members of their family.
Alternatively, they could have just looked at private condominiums.
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