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LIFESTYLE Book Shelf |
Tan Sook Yee’s Principles of
This seminal book on Singapore Land Law is now in its third edition. The new edition is edited by two professors of law, Assoc Prof
Tang Hang Wu and Assoc Professor Kelvin Low.
When the first edition of the book was published, it was very well received by law practitioners. The first edition was after all, the first local book to deal with the land law of Singapore. It is therefore very fortunate indeed that the present editors chose to take up the
tremendous challenge of updating Tan Sook Yee’s work. They have not disappointed.
Now in its third edition, the present book has been updated by the editors to cover what has been a very productive period in
Singapore’s case law. As the editors point out in their preface to the current edition, they have updated the book to include important
landmark decisions such as the one by Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, United Overseas Bank v Bebe. Indeed the editors have noted
that, “ … we have struggled to keep up with the breathtaking pace of the development of Singapore land law jurisprudence that has
often been in the forefront of cutting edge land issues in the Commonwealth.”
Several chapters of the book has been rewritten to keep up with the pace of change so that the book now includes the recent decisions by the Courts in Singapore over the last five years or so.
On the statutory front, Chapter 22 of the book updates the references to the Strata Title legislation and in the process makes references to the recent cases on the subject. Chapter 6 of the current edition also deals with the latest legislative reforms in Singapore with
respect to the Civil Law Act.
The new edition has not stopped at local law. It has also tackled the developments in land law around the Commonwealth. To that
end the book refers to and discusses several significant commonwealth decisions. These include for example, Royal Bank of Scotland v Etridge (No 2) [2001] 3 WLR 1021.
Consistent with the visionary and broad-minded outlook of our current Supreme Court judiciary, the editors have also made
extensive references to academic literature not only from Singapore but elsewhere in the Commonwealth as well.
I have always been of the view that any local textbook, indeed any book which deals with our own local law, should be a part of
every lawyer’s library. My argument has always been, if nothing else a local text is just that, it is a local book which deals with what
is relevant in our jurisdiction. Of course, Tan Sook Yee’s Principles of Singapore Land Law is much more than that.
In my view, no lawyer in practice should be without it. Some may say only conveyancers need to know the hard law it deals with in
respect of land law issues. Well, I would venture that it is the uninformed, and the under-prepared litigation lawyer who
chooses not to have this book in his arsenal of substantive law!
To say the book is of a very high standard is an understatement. I therefore congratulate the editors on the new edition. Most of all,
I recommend this book to all law practitioners and law students alike.
Leslie Chew
District Judge
Subordinate Courts