Lee Hsien Yang says he will apply for demolition of 38 Oxley Road

SINGAPORE: Mr Lee Hsien Yang said on Tuesday (Oct 15) that he will apply to demolish the house at 38 Oxley Road, the former home of his father and founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
The house was Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s home from the mid-1940s until his death in 2015, and was also the home of his daughter, Dr Lee Wei Ling, who died last week.
In a Facebook post, Mr Lee Hsien Yang said he would apply to demolish the house in accordance with his parents’ wishes. He intends to build a small home on the site subsequently, he said.
“To honour my parents’ last wishes, I am applying to demolish the house at 38 Oxley Road and thereafter to build a small private dwelling, to be held within the family in perpetuity,” he said.
Mr Lee Hsien Yang said that he is “the sole legal owner of 38 Oxley Road” and, following his sister’s death, “the only living executor” of Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s estate.
“In his will, he wished for the house to be demolished ‘immediately after’ Wei Ling moved out of the house. It is my duty to carry out his wishes to the fullest extent of the law,” he said.
He also noted that his brother, Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, had said in parliament in 2015 that “it would be up to ‘the government of the day’ to decide whether to allow (the house’s) demolition”, referring to a point in time when Dr Lee was no longer living there.
“It has been nine years. That day is today,” said Mr Lee Hsien Yang.
The family home has been a subject of public interest since the elder Lee’s death on Mar 23, 2015. Dr Lee continued living there after her brothers moved out.
In June 2017, Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee took to social media and accused Mr Lee Hsien Loong, the then Prime Minister, of misrepresenting their father for political gain and that the elder Lee had wanted their family home to be demolished.
Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee alleged they felt threatened in trying to fulfil their late father’s wish to demolish the house. They also accused Mr Lee Hsien Loong of abusing his influence in government to drive his personal agenda.
The saga then made headlines in some of the world’s biggest newspapers, which led to Mr Lee Hsien Loong delivering a ministerial statement in parliament on Jul 3, 2017, to address the allegations.
A ministerial committee on the 38 Oxley Road chaired by Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean, which included then Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, Minister for Law K Shanmugam and then Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong, would later consider the fate of the house.
In April 2018, the committee released its final report on the matter with three proposals: Retaining the house in whole, retaining just its historic basement dining room and allowing it to be demolished.
“In reaching our views on Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s wishes, we relied particularly on the objective evidence placed before us and the key concrete steps that Mr Lee Kuan Yew himself took in his lifetime to put his wishes into effect,” Mr Teo said previously. 
“This included the demolition clause in Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s last will, his letter to Cabinet dated Dec 27, 2011, as well as the renovation/redevelopment plans for 38 Oxley Road which he submitted to the URA in March 2012, and obtained approval for.”
The report did not make any recommendations and noted that “there (was) no need to make a decision on the property” at the time as the Dr Lee was still living there.
“The various options in the report are meant to help a future government make an informed and considered decision when the need arises,” it said.
The late Mr Lee said in his will that he wanted the house to be demolished. If that were not possible, the property should be closed to everyone except family and descendants.
But Mr Lee Hsien Loong said in 2017 that a clause about the demolition was removed in the fifth and sixth versions of the will, and was only reinserted in the seventh and final will.
The final will also restored equal shares of the estate among the three siblings.
The first six wills were prepared by Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s lawyer, Madam Kwa Kim Li, between Aug 20, 2011, and Nov 2, 2012. She was not involved in the preparation of the seventh will, executed on Dec 17, 2013, with the involvement of Mr Lee Hsien Yang and his wife Mrs Lee Suet Fern, a lawyer.
In 2020, a disciplinary tribunal as well as the Court of Three Judges – the highest disciplinary body dealing with lawyers’ misconduct – found that Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Mrs Lee Suet Fern misled the late Mr Lee in the context of the execution of his last will, and that they had lied under oath during the proceedings.
Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Mrs Lee Suet Fern left Singapore in 2022 after deciding not to attend a scheduled police interview.
In a statement issued in March 2023, the police said they had asked the couple to attend the interview over potential offences of giving false evidence in judicial proceedings regarding Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s will.
Mdm Kwa was in May 2023 ordered to pay penalties over misconduct in relation to Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s wills.