WK Lim & Partners

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the limits of the Strata Management Tribunal's power to award charges under the Strata Management Act 2013 and the scope of the Commissioner of Buildings' role in verifying and recognising management committees.

WK Lim & Partners appears in the corpus as counsel in strata-management and corporate litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), with a marked concentration on the governance of subdivided buildings.

Several connected matters concern the powers of the Strata Management Tribunal. Acting for applicants challenging decisions of the Tribunal in favour of a management corporation, the firm appeared where the court considered whether the Tribunal's award of miscellaneous charges, including insurance premiums, sanitary charges and quit rent, was ultra vires the Strata Management Act 2013, whether the charges the Act envisages are confined to maintenance charges and contributions to the sinking fund, whether arrears computed on a per-square-foot basis and not tabled before the annual general meeting could be allowed, and whether the Tribunal could decide issues already determined by the High Court.

The firm also appeared in a matter concerning the powers of the Commissioner of Buildings under the Strata Management Act 2013, where, acting for an intervener, the court examined whether the Commissioner had power to require statutory declarations to verify the names of newly elected management-committee members, whether only certified true copies of resolutions and minutes were required under paragraph 7(8) of the Second Schedule, whether the Commissioner could issue a letter of recognition of committee members, and whether a bank could rely on such a letter to decline the signatories of a management corporation's account and freeze it.

In corporate work the firm acted for the defendant in a dispute over the requisitioning of an extraordinary general meeting, examining whether a director was validly acting under section 313 of the Companies Act 2016, whether the special-notice requirement under section 206(3) for a resolution to remove directors had been met, and whether the requisition breached a collaboration agreement. The firm's record is a strata-and-corporate governance practice of some depth.