Property Torts, Mortgages & Co-ownership (Singapore)

Part A — Torts that touch property

• Negligence — needs a duty of care, a breach, and causation with resulting damage (loss not too remote). Singapore uses the Spandeck two-stage test: factual foreseeability, then legal proximity, subject to policy.
• Negligent misstatement / misrepresentation — careless wrong information, reasonably relied on, causing loss. For pure economic loss there must be a special relationship / assumption of responsibility (the Hedley Byrne principle) — a live risk for agents and valuers.
• Private nuisance — unreasonable interference with a person's use and enjoyment of land; the claimant generally needs a proprietary interest in the affected land.
• Public nuisance — affects a class of the public; it is both a crime and a tort, and a private person can sue only if they suffer special damage beyond the general public.
• Occupiers' liability — Singapore has no Occupiers' Liability Act. Since See Toh Siew Kee v Ho Ah Lam Ben [2013] SGCA 29, an occupier's duty to people on the premises is decided under the ordinary negligence framework (Spandeck), not the old visitor/trespasser categories.
• Trespass to land — a direct, unauthorised interference with land in another's possession; actionable per se (no damage needed).
• Other doctrines: Rylands v Fletcher (strict liability for the escape of a dangerous thing from a non-natural use); vicarious liability (employer liable for an employee's torts in the course of employment);