Deal made to sell house for S$1 to appease siblings

SINGAPORE — Mr Lee Hsien Yang had wanted to buy 38 Oxley Road for S$1 jointly with his sister Lee Wei Ling, from their brother Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — to whom founding PM Lee Kuan Yew had willed the house. 

But the deal fell through as the younger Lee siblings wanted PM Lee to “give a certain undertaking”, which he could not agree to.

PM Lee revealed this on Tuesday, responding to Members of Parliament who asked why he offered to transfer the house to Dr Lee for a nominal sum of S$1, but later sold it to Mr Lee Hsien Yang at market value.

PM Lee said he made the initial offer to Dr Lee to “resolve (his siblings’) unhappiness” that their father had left him the house. “I was hoping, all along, to work out an amicable resolution even if that meant compromising some of my own interests,” he said.

He made the offer to Dr Lee in May 2015, on the condition that all proceeds must go to charity if the bungalow were to be later sold or acquired by the Government.

“(Dr Lee) had been living there for a long time … And my father had wanted her to continue living in the house after he died, if she wished to. So it was natural to let her own the house,” he said.

When his brother wanted in on the deal, PM Lee had agreed to it.

But disagreements festered during their discussions, he said, adding that his siblings began making allegations against him.

“I told them that they would have to stop attacking me if they wanted the deal done, because otherwise, if I transferred the house to them and that quarrel continues, there was no point,” he said.

When asked by Workers’ Party MP Low Thia Khiang to elaborate on the “wild allegations” and the undertaking his siblings had wanted him to make, PM Lee said these include how he was purportedly “deceiving (his) father” and thus had sold the house to his siblings.

PM Lee added: “So I (told my I siblings that I) will sell you the house if you undertake to stop these allegations. They said, in that case, you, Lee Hsien Loong, undertake to help us get the house knocked down. And support us in getting the house knocked (down). I said, I cannot do that ... There was an impasse.”

Even after he “became troubled” by how Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s Last Will was drafted, PM Lee said he held back from raising the issues with his siblings as he “still hoped for an amicable settlement”. But Dr Lee and Mr Lee Hsien Yang issued an “ultimatum” to “accept their terms” by Sept 1, 2015, which also happened to be Nomination Day, said PM Lee.

After the election, and the deadline given by his siblings had lapsed, PM Lee made a fresh offer as they were “not getting anywhere with the S$1 offer”— to sell Mr Lee Hsien Yang the house at full market value, with the condition that both brothers would donate half of the value to charity.

In response to PM Lee’s remarks in Parliament, Dr Lee said on Facebook on Tuesday evening that when PM Lee made the S$1 offer to her, she had “immediately asked” Mr Lee Hsien Yang to take on the deal together.

“I have neither the time, nor the inclination to deal with the house on my own. Hsien Yang did not ask to join me in purchasing the house for $1,” she wrote. 

She added that Mr Lee Hsien Yang had “long planned” to demolish the house when she no longer resides in it, and convert it into a “public garden”. “Neither of us were planning to profit from the deal,” she added.

Reiterating that their father was against his children donating any proceeds from the house to charity, she said: “Papa was very clear in his mind, he and Mama had paid for the property at the full financial value when they bought it, there was … no need to donate to charity any money related to transactions on Oxley,” she said.