SINGAPORE - For close to 15 years, an architect and his wife unlawfully occupied 144.2 sq m of state land next to their three-storey house in Jalan Tari Zapin in Seletar, which was built in 2005 but had been left vacant since. The main gate, entrance driveway, two boundary walls and a fence of the house effectively annexed the parcel of state land - which was larger than a five-room Housing Board flat - as part of the couple's property. Part of the swimming pool also jutted out onto the enclosed land. The encroachments were discovered in 2013 when national water agency PUB implemented a drainage improvement project to alleviate flooding in the area. Following numerous requests and demands by the authorities, the offending structures were finally removed in December 2019. Tan Teck Siong and his wife Cheah Mee Poh - the first people to be prosecuted for trespassing on state land under the State Lands Encroachments Act - have been respectively fined $4,000 and $3,000 for their offences. The offence carries a maximum fine of $5,000 or a jail term of up to six months, or both. Tan was fined another $5,000 under the Building Control Act for making false declarations in December 2005 that...