Liat Yeang Lee

Practice Areas

Lee Liat Yeang is a senior partner in Dentons Rodyk's Real Estate practice group. He is Co-Head of the Corporate Real Estate, Project Development and Collective Sales practices.

Liat Yeang started his legal practice with the firm in 1993. Since then, Liat Yeang has been advising in all aspects of corporate real estate work including sales and purchase, project development work for developers and real estate financing. He acts for many real estate developers and real estate investment companies in numerous real estate transactions, whether they are by sale of land or by sale of shares in the real estate holding company.

For more than two decades, Liat Yeang has handled numerous collective sales projects, acting for the vendors in the collective sale (including attendance at the hearings of the applications to Strata Titles Boards for their approval of the sale). He was consulted by the Ministry of Law in 2007 and 2009 when the Ministry was considering proposed changes to laws governing the collective sale process. The prominent collective sales deals that he has handled over the years include Eastern Mansion, Amberville, Beverly Mai, Farrer Court, Paramount Hotel & Shopping Centre, Parkway View, Chateau Eliza, Green Lodge, and more recently Rio Casa, Royalville and Changi Gardens.

Liat Yeang also acts for many real estate developers in their acquisition, sale and/or project sales of their developments. Some of his developer-clients include Sim Lian Group, Chip Eng Seng Group, Roxy Pacific Holdings, Tuan Sing Holdings, UIC, Qingjian Group, Far East Organization, Property Enterprise Development (of Cheung Kong Group), Tong Eng Group, Sing Holdings, Oxley Holdings, Lian Beng Group and Logan Properties.

Most recently, Liat Yeang acted for a real estate fund jointly managed by LaSalle Investments Management and TE Capital in the acquisition of PIL Building at 140 Cecil Street, unique deal which involves application to upgrade part of the land from leasehold status to freehold. Liat Yeang also acted for Munich based fund AM Alpha in the acquisition of a prime CBD office building at 112 Robinson Road for S$269.7m. Liat Yeang and team also acted for a joint venture of CEL Development, Singhaiyi Group and Ultra Infinity in the acquisition of Peace Centre/Peace Mansion for S$650m, which represented the largest mixed uses collective sale deal in 2021. He also acted for a CEL-led consortium in the acquisition of Maxwell House, a commercial development with potential for rezoning and change of use to part Residential use with possible lease upgrading; this matter involves interesting issues of ABSD including ABSD on lease upgrading premium. Liat Yeang also acted for listed developer Tuan Sing Holdings and property giant Far East Organisation in their respective acquisition of a petrol kiosk from a petroleum company, and of a large strata carpark space in CBD area.

His past prominent projects include leading in the negotiation and acting for the vendors in the collective sale of Farrer Court which is still the largest collective sale in Singapore to-date (both in terms of value of more than S$1.3 billion and in terms of number of units), acting for Sim Lian Group in the first Design Build & Sell Scheme (DBSS) project in Singapore called the Premiere at Tampines (where private developers tender, develop, build and sell HDB flats), acting for Tuan Sing Group in the sale of Katong Mall, acting for CEL Development/Lehmann Brothers joint venture entity in the collective purchase of Westpeak (a project in the West Coast with purchase price of S$206 million), acting for CEL Development/Citadel group joint venture entity in the collective purchase of Grange Towers (a project situated in the Orchard area, worth S$180 million). Liat Yeang led in the successful collective sale of Paramount Hotel & Shopping Centre (the first collective sale in Singapore involving a hotel and a retail mall). Liat Yeang also acted for Far East in the acquisition of AA Centre, a commercial podium at River Valley, and more recently the residential units in the same complex. He also led a team of partners to act for Tuan Sing Holdings in the acquisition of Robinson Point, an office building along Robinson Road, via share purchase. Liat Yeang has been advising clients on issues relating to Additional Buyers Stamp Duties, and on issues relating to Qualifying Certificate issued to foreign developers of residential lands. He successfully assisted a listed company to obtain approval from the Controller of Residential Property to transfer its interest in a residential land to another company. He has also succeeded on applications to IRAS on remission of ABSD and SSD in various scenarios, and also on remission of Additional Conveyance Duty in various cases including the case of sale of company shares for the property developer of 21 Angullia Park.

In 2016, Liat Yeang acted for Chinese developer Qingjian in their maiden “enbloc acquisition” in Singapore when they acquired Shunfu Ville for S$638 million, which was then the highest sale price achieved in a decade since 2007 (when Farrer Court was sold). Liat Yeang and team is now acting for Qingjian in their project sales of Jadescape which comprises of more than 1300 units to be constructed on the former site of Shunfu Ville. Liat Yeang acted for Lucrum Capital in their sale of their wholly owned subsidiary Lucrum Capital, which owned the leasehold interest of 11 Hillside Drive which currently houses HWA (the Hillside World Academy which is the new Chinese international school). Liat Yeang is also active in the commercial space. He acted in the respective acquisition of a commercial building known as Wilkie Edge and of a retail mall known as Sembawang Shopping Centre. He also acted for Tuan Sing Group in their acquisition of Sime Darby Centre at Dunearn Road. In the most recent round of collective sales, Liat Yeang acted for the vendors of Rio Casa, a 286 units development at Hougang Ave 7, and for the vendors of Royalville along Bukit Timah Road (for a record sale price outside of Orchard area), in their respective collective sales. Liat Yeang also acted for Chinese developer Logan Properties in their maiden purchase of a collective sale site known as Florence Regency. The latter is one of a number of acquisitions of leasehold residential developments handled by Liat Yeang in recent years where issues of lease top up arise for advice. It is also noteworthy that Liat Yeang acted for Sim Lian in the acquisition of Tampines Court for S$970 million, making this the second largest collective sale deal in Singapore by quantum. Liat Yeang also acted for Far East Organisation in their acquisition of leasehold residential project Chancery Court, which was the property giant’s only acquisition of collective sales site since 2011. In 2020, Liat Yeand and team acted for Oxley Holdings in the sale of their shares in the company entity that owns Chevron House and in the related sale of the strata retail and banking units in the same building.

Liat Yeang has been quoted on numerous occasions in the Straits Times and the Business Times and in the business magazine Edge Singapore, on various legal and commercial issues in the real estate industry. His article "Scope of ABSD - More Clarifications Required from IRAS" was published in full in the Business Times on 21 April 2012. Liat Yeang also wrote another article "Time to Review Qualifying Certificate Rules" which was published in the Business Times' "Who's Who in Law" section on 15 May 2013. Liat Yeang’s article “So you want to go en bloc …” was published in full in the Straits Times on 18 July 2016. More recently, Liat Yeang was asked to be one of the panel judges for Edge Property Singapore to assess the best condominium and residential/mixed uses developments in Singapore. Liat Yeang also served as a Member of Taxpayer Feedback Panel to IRAS from October 2016 to September 2018.

Liat Yeang is currently serving as Chairperson of the Law Society's Conveyancing Practice Committee.

Career

Senior Partner - Dentons Rodyk (1993 - present)

Professional Memberships

Chairperson, Conveyancing Practice Committee, The Law Society of Singapore

Publications

MND: More temporary relief measures for property sector hit by Covid-19

Expanded Covid-19 temporary measures offer relief for buyers of new homes

Up to 500 private home projects to get more time to finish and sell by ABSD deadlines: Finance Ministry