The Management Corporation Strata Title Plan No. 561 v Kosma Holdings Pte Ltd

The Management Corporation Strata Title Plan No 561 (the MCST) manages Parklane Shopping Mall on Selegie Road, including its loading bay and bin centre. Vehicles can reach the loading bay only from Kirk Terrace along a privately owned service road. The mall and the service road were once a single lot; a certified plan dated 16 April 1982 shows the later subdivision. Kosma Holdings Pte Ltd (KOSMA) bought the service road on 4 February 2021 and is also the subsidiary proprietor of the carpark beyond the loading bay.

The previous owner had let refuse trucks through its gantry free of charge. From December 2024 KOSMA's subsidiary began charging them the lorry parking rate. KOSMA also put up a fence, a bollard and grills, lengthened the gantry arm, which appeared designed to stop bins being wheeled out to trucks waiting on Kirk Terrace, imposed fees of $1,000 for each unauthorised entry, and announced chains and extra access fees for the loading bay. The court found these steps caused great difficulty for refuse removal and deliveries.

In Originating Application No 608 of 2025 the MCST asked the High Court to imply an easement under s 99 of the Land Titles Act 1993 or create one under s 97A, with injunctions and a declaration that the $6,000 KOSMA imposed for alleged unauthorised entries was an unenforceable penalty. It sought interim injunctions in HC/SUM 1687/2025.

1. Whether an easement of way to the loading bay could be implied under s 99 of the Land Titles Act 1993 when the subdivision plan could not be produced
2. Whether the certified plan could be admitted as secondary evidence of the lost subdivision plan
3. Whether an easement over the service road was reasonably necessary for the effective use of the mall under s 97A
4. Whether the conditions in s 97A(2), including reasonable attempts to obtain the easement, were met

Under s 99 the starting point is the subdivision plan submitted to the authority. Failure to deposit it is not fatal, but the land must have been set apart for the easement on that plan. The judge would have accepted the certified plan as secondary evidence of the lost plan, but s 65 of the Evidence Act 1893 lists the forms of secondary evidence exhaustively and a certified plan is not among them. For completeness, the judge found that "service road" carried its ordinary meaning of a road serving needs such as bin centres and loading, and that a right of way to the bin centre, limited to refuse trucks, would have been implied had the subdivision plan matched the certified plan.

On s 97A, the judge drew on Huber's Pte Ltd v Hu Lee Impex Pte Ltd [2025] 3 SLR 85 and noted that "reasonably necessary" is looser than strict necessity and that "effective use" admits of degree. Wheeling bins through the mall to Kirk Terrace was completely impractical, and loading could not take place from Selegie Road, so access for refuse was categorically necessary and access for deliveries at least reasonable and substantially preferable. KOSMA's conduct had been unreasonable and impaired the mall's use.

Use of the mall was consistent with the public interest, and KOSMA could be compensated for wear and tear, with the court able to decide who maintains the road. The correspondence showed the MCST seeking solutions but not directly asking for an easement. Section 97A(2)(c) is a condition of the order, not of the application, so the MCST could be given time to meet it.

The court declined to imply an easement under s 99 but held that it will create an easement of way under s 97A once the MCST satisfies s 97A(2)(c). It ordered that the parties have six weeks to exchange proposals on the easement and file supplementary submissions, with the scope of the easement, compensation, the consequential orders and HC/SUM 1687/2025 to be dealt with then. Time to appeal runs only from the order creating the easement.