Shahrel Azizi bin Saad v Harun bin Ramli

Case Significance

Holds that a claim to recover land bought by a deceased, framed as specific performance encompassing the recovery of trust property from a trustee, is not caught by the twelve-year limitation period, and rejects a defence that the sale was in substance a disguised money-lending transaction.

This High Court decision at Alor Setar, heard together with an identical companion action differing only in the property and registered owner concerned, involves a claim by the administrator of a deceased's estate to recover land. The plaintiff, suing as administrator of the estate of the deceased purchaser, sought an order compelling the defendant to transfer ownership of the land to the estate, the plaintiff's case being that the deceased had bought the property for a stated consideration. The defendant resisted on a diametrically opposite basis, contending that the entire dealing between the parties had not been a sale at all but a money-lending transaction — a loan clothed in the appearance of a sale — and that in any event the plaintiff's claim was time-barred. The central questions were therefore whether the transaction ought to be regarded as a genuine sale or was in substance a disguised loan, and whether the claim was caught by the law of limitation, in particular section 22 of the Limitation Act 1953. The Court held that the plaintiff's claim was for specific performance of a contract encompassing the recovery of trust property by a beneficiary from a trustee, and that such a cause of action is not caught by the twelve-year limitation period prescribed by the National Land Code provisions relied on, following Abdul Razak Sheikh Mahmood & Anor v Bhupinder Singh s/o Avtar Singh & Ors. Having found that the claim was not statute-barred and that it involved the recovery of trust property, the Court rejected the defendant's remaining submissions, including those premised on money-lending and on the plaintiff being out of time to enforce a charge. It allowed the plaintiff's claim, dismissed the defendant's counterclaim, and ordered the defendant to take the necessary steps to effect the transfer of ownership of the property to the estate.