En bloc sales in Singapore: consent thresholds, steps and the 2026 Bill

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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Selling a flat in Singapore is normally a decision one owner takes alone. A collective sale, usually called an en bloc sale, is the exception: the whole development is sold to one buyer, and an owner who never wanted to sell can be bound by the choice of the neighbours. That is why the law surrounds the process with percentages, deadlines, notices and a tribunal.

The subject is also moving. On 4 August 2026 the Ministry of Law announced the Land Titles (Strata) (Amendment) Bill 2026, which would lower the consent needed in the oldest developments and tighten several safeguards. This guide sets out the rules in force as the Strata Titles Boards describe them, follows the procedure from the first general meeting to the sale order, and then explains what the Bill proposes, as the Ministry of Law has dated and described it.

Current rules under the Land Titles (Strata) Act, as set out by the Strata Titles Boards.

What a collective sale is

The Strata Titles Boards define a collective sale as a sale of two or more property units to a common purchaser. The familiar case is a strata development in which every unit is sold to a developer and the proceeds are divided among the owners. The Boards note that there are variations, such as a sale together with an adjoining development or with landed properties.

The rules sit in Part VA of the Land Titles (Strata) Act. Two situations must be kept apart. If every owner agrees, the sale is a matter of contract between the owners and the buyer, and no tribunal is involved. The Strata Titles Boards say they deal only with the other case: all the units are to be sold, but fewer than 100% of the owners have consented. Everything in this guide concerns that second case, the majority-consent sale.

The law calls unit owners subsidiary proprietors. The owners who sign are the majority; those who do not are the minority, and the procedure gives them a formal right to object.

The consent thresholds in force

According to the Strata Titles Boards, the consent needed depends on the age of the development. Where it is less than 10 years old, the owners in favour must hold at least 90% of the share value and of the strata area. Where it is 10 years old or older, the figure is at least 80% of each.

Age has a fixed starting point. It is measured from the date of the latest Temporary Occupation Permit or, if no such permit was issued, from the Certificate of Statutory Completion. A development built in phases is therefore dated from its last permit, not its first.

The two percentages are as old as the regime. The Ministry of Law's Second Reading speech on the 2026 Bill recalls that collective sales by majority were introduced in 1999, with 80% for developments aged 10 years or more and 90% for younger ones. Those figures have applied for 27 years.

Once the statutory majority has consented, section 84A of the Act allows the owners to apply for a collective sale order. The application goes to the Strata Titles Boards or to the High Court. Reaching the percentage does not complete the sale: it opens the door to an application, and the order is what binds the owners who did not sign.

How the majority is counted

The test is not a head count. The Strata Titles Boards give the threshold as a share of two things at once, share value and strata area, so the owners in favour must reach the percentage on both measures. A group that passes on one and falls short on the other has not reached the majority.

A worked example shows why this matters. Assume a development more than 10 years old with a total share value of 1,000 shares and a total strata area of 12,000 square metres. At 80%, the majority needs owners holding at least 800 shares and at least 9,600 square metres. Suppose the owners who have signed hold 820 shares and 9,300 square metres. That is 82% of the share value but 77.5% of the area. The threshold is not met, and the committee still needs owners holding a further 300 square metres to sign. These are illustrative figures, not data from any real development.

The same example at the 90% level, for a development under 10 years old, would require 900 shares and 10,800 square metres.

In practice the double test gives weight to larger units. Owners of a few big flats or of commercial units may hold a share of the area well above their number, and a committee that counts only signatures can misjudge how far it has got. The regular reports on progress, described below, give the percentage reached as well as the number of signatures.

The committee and the sale agreement

A collective sale starts with the owners themselves. The Strata Titles Boards explain that owners elect a Collective Sale Committee at a general meeting. That meeting has to be requisitioned, and the current rule is that the requisition needs owners holding at least 20% of the share value, or 25% of the total number of subsidiary proprietors.

The Boards add two points about the committee. Its members should be drawn from across the unit types of the development, and candidates must disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest. The proceedings of the committee are governed by the Second and Third Schedules to the Act.

The committee's central document is the collective sale agreement. It is the contract by which owners agree among themselves to sell together, and it sets a reserve price, the lowest price at which the development may be sold. Each owner who agrees signs it.

Three rules protect owners during the signing period, all taken from the Strata Titles Boards' guidance.

• A cooling-off period. An owner who signs may rescind within five days by serving a notice of rescission. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are not counted. On a plain reading, an owner who signs on a Wednesday in a week with no public holiday would count Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; the exact computation is a matter for the Act.
• Regular updates. From the first signature, owners must be told every 4 weeks how many owners have signed and what percentage they represent.
• Visible notices. The notice is affixed in a conspicuous part of each building, in the four official languages.

Time runs from the first signature. The last signature needed to make up the majority must be obtained no later than 12 months after the first. If the percentage is not reached in that time, the agreement cannot carry the sale further.

A second period then opens. Once the minimum signatures are in, the majority has 12 months to find a purchaser and apply for the sale order. The two periods follow one another: up to 12 months to gather the majority, then up to 12 months to sell and apply.

From buyer to application

The Strata Titles Boards' guidance refers to the close of a public tender or auction, which is the point at which the site is valued. From there the route to the Boards is a fixed sequence, and the order of the stages matters because several deadlines are counted from one stage to the next.

The limit of three applicants comes from section 84A(2). They act for the whole majority, and the application they file takes the form of a statutory declaration.

The two reports are required by paragraph 1(e) of the First Schedule. The first values the site as at the close of the public tender or auction. The second, also by an independent valuer, deals with the proposed method of distributing the sale proceeds among the owners. They answer different questions: whether the price for the whole site is fair, and whether each owner's part of it is. The Boards note that a dispute over valuation may be referred to the Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers.

The advertisement gives information on the development, brief details of the sale and the place where the documents can be inspected. The notice served on owners is heavier. According to the Boards, it attaches the advertisement, the collective sale agreement, the sale and purchase agreement, a statutory declaration by the purchaser about its relationships, the minutes of the general meetings, the valuation report and the report on distribution. A copy of the notice is also affixed to each building in the four official languages.

Form 21 is filed in six copies. Among the documents the Boards list with it are searches on the purchaser and its corporate shareholders, a schedule of owners and encumbrances, and an undertaking to pay the Board's costs. A certificate of stamp duty is required where seller's stamp duty applies; how that duty is charged in a collective sale is outside this guide. The application fee of S$5,000 is set by the Building Maintenance and Strata Management (Strata Titles Boards) Regulations 2005. After filing, the applicants complete an affidavit of service on Form 21A and lodge a copy of the application with the Singapore Land Authority.

Objections, mediation and the Board

An owner who has not consented in writing may object. The Strata Titles Boards give the deadline as 21 days after the notice has been served on all owners, and the objection is made on the prescribed form. When objections are filed, the Board forwards them to the applicants within 5 days, by registered post.

A Board is then constituted for the case. It has three or five members and is presided over by the President or a Deputy President. The parties have 7 days from the notice of constitution to object in writing to a member on reasonable grounds, such as a conflict of interest.

What happens next depends on whether anyone objected. With no objection, the Board fixes a hearing to decide whether the sale is in good faith. With objections, the Board mediates between the majority and the objectors. Parties receive a notice of mediation and are required to attend. The first two mediation sessions carry no fee; from the third attendance the applicants pay fees under the schedule to the regulations.

The Boards' guidance does not describe what follows a mediation that fails, nor a time limit for the Board's decision, and it refers readers to Part VA of the Act for those points. What the published guidance does make clear is the alternative forum: section 84A allows the application to be made to the High Court.

What protects an owner who objects

The safeguards for the minority are the part of the regime that the 2026 Bill leaves untouched. The Ministry of Law's Second Reading speech lists them as continuing protections.

First, the sale has to be approved. The Strata Titles Board or the General Division of the High Court must be satisfied that the transaction is in good faith. The speech specifies that this covers the method of apportioning the proceeds, which is why the second valuer's report exists.

Second, according to the same speech, a sale cannot proceed if an objector would suffer a financial loss. A majority, however large, cannot force through a sale that leaves an objecting owner out of pocket.

Third, a sale cannot proceed if an objector's proceeds would not be enough to redeem the mortgage or charge on the unit. An owner cannot be left with a debt and no home to secure it.

There is also a monetary remedy. The speech refers to an increase in an objector's share that the General Division of the High Court may order where it is just and equitable. It is capped, and the cap is one of the figures the Bill would change.

Why the rules are under review

The Ministry of Law's case for change is about age. In its Second Reading speech, delivered on 8 September 2026, the minister, Edwin Tong, said that about 1 in 20 non-landed private residential units are now aged 40 years or older: roughly 20,000 units in close to 250 developments. Divided out, that is an average of about 80 units per development. The speech adds that the number will grow, and that in 1999 the oldest developments were on average about two to three decades old.

Older buildings cost more to keep. The speech gives lift costs as an illustration: modernising a single lift starts from S$120,000, and replacing one in full costs about S$200,000 to S$300,000. As a worked example, a development with six lifts would face at least S$720,000 to modernise them all, and S$1.2 million to S$1.8 million to replace them, on those figures. The speech also mentions facade inspections, repairs to spalling concrete, waterproofing and repainting, and says maintenance fees and sinking fund contributions can rise by up to 50% in some cases as a development ages.

The Ministry says the proposals follow consultation since 2023 with academics, lawyers, property consultants, industry associations, developers, representatives of the Strata Titles Boards and individual owners. The Bill was introduced for First Reading on 4 August 2026.

What the 2026 Bill would change

The Bill keeps the two existing tiers and adds two below them, for developments aged 40 years and more.

One point should be read with care. The Strata Titles Boards express today's thresholds as a share of both share value and strata area. The Ministry's press release and speech give the new percentages without restating the measure, so the precise wording for the new tiers has to be read in the Bill itself.

Assuming the measure is unchanged, the earlier example shows the scale of the shift. In a development of 1,000 shares and 12,000 square metres, a 70% threshold means 700 shares and 8,400 square metres; a 65% threshold means 650 shares and 7,800 square metres. The signatories with 820 shares and 9,300 square metres, who fell short at 80%, would pass both.

The lower thresholds come with tighter conditions earlier in the process.

Take a development of 120 units with one owner per unit, as a worked example. Today 30 owners can requisition the meeting that forms a committee. Under the Bill it would take 42. Starting an attempt would need broader support before any money is spent on it.

The shorter signature period works the same way. A committee would have half the time it has now to reach the majority, so an attempt without real momentum would lapse sooner, and owners who do not wish to sell would spend less time in uncertainty.

After a failed attempt, the restriction period would run for three years instead of two. The speech sets out two levels within it. A first new attempt during the period would need a requisition of at least 50% by share value or number of units: 60 of the 120 units in the example. A second or later attempt within the period would need a requisition equal to the consent threshold itself, which the speech gives as 70% for developments aged 40 to 59 and 65% for those aged 60 and above. In the example that is 84 units or 78 units.

The cap on the increase a court may order for an objector would double. A worked example: for a unit whose sale proceeds are S$2.4 million, 0.25% is S$6,000 and 0.5% is S$12,000. The S$2,000 figure matters for small units. For proceeds of S$320,000, 0.5% is S$1,600, so the cap would be S$2,000. The two limbs meet at proceeds of S$400,000 per unit. This is a ceiling on what the court may award where it finds it just and equitable, not an entitlement.

Flats without land and sales in progress

The Bill also covers a small group of developments that are not strata-titled. The Ministry of Law's press release explains that their flat owners hold long leases but do not own the land beneath, so that today a collective sale needs the unanimous agreement of the flat owners and the landowner. Majority-consent sales are currently possible only where the flat leases run for at least 850 years.

A new section 84FC would extend majority-consent sales to private, wholly residential developments where the flat owners hold leases of under 850 years and do not own the land, with the age-based thresholds and safeguards for the landowner. The Second Reading speech expects about five developments to qualify and names them: Neptune Court, Townhouse Apartments, Orchard Court, One Tree Hill Mansions and Paterson Court. All are more than 40 years old and stand on land owned by the Minister for Finance, a body incorporated by statute. Developments owned by the Housing and Development Board are excluded.

For sales already under way, the dividing line is the first signature. According to the press release, where the first signature on a collective sale agreement was obtained before the commencement date, the existing framework continues to apply. Where no signature has been obtained by that date, most of the amendments apply.

There is one opt-in. A committee of a development aged 40 years or more that is still collecting signatures on the commencement date may call general meetings to terminate its agreement and approve the terms of a new one under the new regime. It would then have 7 months from the commencement date to reach the required threshold.

For owners in an older development where an attempt is in progress, the practical question is therefore which regime governs it. Until a commencement date is published, the answer is the current one, with its 80% threshold.

Where the estate agent stands

Collective sales are handled differently from an ordinary sale in the rules for estate agents too. Section 44 of the Estate Agents Act deals with estate agency agreements, and the Estate Agents (Estate Agency Work) Regulations 2010, in the consolidation published by the Council for Estate Agencies as in force from 1 January 2026, prescribe eight forms of agreement for residential sales, purchases and leases. Regulation 11 of the same regulations provides that section 44(1) and (2) does not apply to estate agency work in respect of any actual or proposed collective sale under Part VA of the Land Titles (Strata) Act.

In plain terms, the prescribed forms an owner signs when appointing a salesperson to sell a single flat are not required for a collective sale. The relationship between the owners and those who market the development is then a matter of the terms agreed for that sale, not of a prescribed form.

For an individual owner, the dates to watch are few and fixed: five working days to rescind after signing, an update every 4 weeks, and 21 days to object once notice of the application has been served. Each case turns on its own documents and valuation, and the Strata Titles Boards describe their own guidance as a general guide, not legal advice.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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