From 1 July 2023, Owners / Tenants Will be Responsible for High-Rise Littering Even If They’re Not the Guilty Party

Owners and Tenants Now Presumed to be Guilty for Any High-Rise Littering Offence

As the calendar flips to 1 July 2023 and you wonder where the heck has the first half of 2023 disappeared to, an intriguing new rule will come into play that you probably didn’t know of.

If you are planning to host a fun-filled get-together with your buddies, there’s a peculiar new rule that insists you ensure none of them end up chucking your barking dogs out of the window. It’s not just a case of needing to question your friend’s mental state, but it also lands you in hot water because you would be considered guilty, even if you weren’t the culprit.

Effective tomorrow (1 July 2023), littering from your flat is considered a no-no of epic proportions, regardless of whether the errant trash lands on a public area or not.

The crux of the issue falls on the registered owners (or tenants if the entire residential flat is rented) as they’ll be assumed to have committed the offense.

Brace yourself for a potential Instagram friends list culling, because, although you could still pin the blame on your friend, the new regulations make it a little more complicated.

From 1 July 2023, Owner or Tenants Will be Responsible for High-Rise Littering Even If They’re Not Guilty Party

From tomorrow onwards, it’s not just a case of the person who did the deed taking the heat. Now, even if you didn’t do the high-rise littering, as an owner or tenant, you’d still be held accountable for any high-rise trash disposal that goes down from your flat. In essence, if your friend decides to give gravity a helping hand with your rubbish, it’s your neck on the line.

Between 2020 and 2022, the NEA was kept busy investigating an average of 31,200 instances of high-rise littering complaints annually. That’s a large increase of about 64% compared to the annual average of 19,100 instances reported from 2017 to 2019. With these eye-opening statistics, it’s clear that it’s time to tackle this issue head-on.

And tackle it, they will.

Flat owners will be held accountable and presumed guilty for littering from their residences unless they can convince the authorities that they had no part in the offence.

The penalty for being found guilty? A hefty fine of up to $2,000 for the first conviction, doubled for the second, and then jumping up to $10,000 for third and subsequent convictions.

Not to mention the possibility of being made to undergo a Corrective Work Order, toiling away for up to 12 hours cleaning public areas.

I won’t need to even explain how dangerous it is. You’d have seen something drop from the sky in front of you before.

This presumption clause was unveiled in Parliament on 9 January this year, with the National Environment Agency (NEA) stating that this would fortify the existing legislation by “transferring more responsibility to flat owners and tenants to prevent such acts”.

But don’t panic just yet—what happens if you, the owner or tenant, can pinpoint the guilty party?

Doing It the LTA / TP Way

Taking a leaf out of the LTA / TP playbook, if a vehicle is spotted committing an offence on the road, the registered owner is usually asked to reveal the driver’s identity—if not, the owner gets the “privilege” of assuming responsibility. A similar modus operandi is being applied to high-rise littering.

Owners and tenants will have a 14-day window to refute the presumption by proving that they weren’t present at the flat at the time of the offence, proving that they couldn’t possibly be the offender, or by supplying the identity of the person they believe to be the offender to NEA.

If the designated period passes without a rebuttal, NEA will issue a summons to the presumed offender instead.

What happens if the presumed offender missed the letter of intended prosecution? Well, they can provide evidence explaining why they couldn’t respond to the letter, like airline tickets or boarding passes proving they were abroad at the time. The NEA will assess the evidence, and if it’s convincing enough, they’ll withdraw the summons.

In cases of shared ownership, the presumption clause applies to all owners or tenants of the residential flat when it’s proven that littering has been committed from their flat. In a sense, all flat owners or tenants should shoulder equal responsibility for preventing littering offences from their flats. But don’t worry, all owners and tenants will be granted ample time and opportunity to prove their innocence during the investigation.

Just don’t try to abuse the system by naming a woman as the offender when it’s a half-naked bald guy throwing a cigarette butt down from a window.