HDB estate officers turn investigators as they stake out suspect flats

ESTATE officer Charlotte Chow of the Housing Board (HDB) works just like a private eye.

For the 24-year-old, who can still pass for a university student, undertaking covert surveillance is all in a day’s work when she and the colleague she is paired with have reason to believe that an HDB flat is being illegally sublet.

For a month, they monitor the suspected flat at various hours of the day – wee hours of the morning included.

They look out for the classic telltale signs of illegal subletting, such as more pairs of footwear outside than would be expected for a flat of that size, or workers’ overalls of different sizes hung out to dry.

Estate officers – each overseeing on average 5,000 of the 841,000 units islandwide – work from tip-offs from the public.

When these come in, the first order of business is to check if the flat has met the minimum occupation period, and if the owner has approval to sublet the unit.

‘If not, surveillance starts,’ she said.

HDB regulations allow owners to sublet their flats only after they have lived there at least five years for new flats or those bought on the open market with a Central Provident Fund housing grant, and three years for non-subsidised flats. Even so, HDB’s approval must be obtained, and a cap is put on the number of sub-tenants based on flat size.

Officers on surveillance duty will look into the flat as they stroll past it, or monitor it from a nearby block. They talk to neighbours and take photographs.

She said: ‘We have the flat owner’s picture, so we can identify him. We’re also there at random times, so we know if he comes back or leaves the flat.’

Once it is ascertained that unauthorised subletting is taking place, she and her colleague spring a surprise house visit and interview the tenants.

Ms Chow said: ‘We ask the tenants for their identity cards, ask how long they have been staying in the flat, whether the owner is living with them and which rooms they are occupying.’

Asked if tenants give them a tough time, she said they are usually cooperative. If anything, the language barrier is more of a problem when they encounter foreigners.

Tip-offs aside, Ms Chow gets information from the colleague she is paired with, technical officer Joseph Goh, 29. He said when he enters flats to inspect structural problems such as spalling concrete, he takes note when the flat looks ill maintained or seems overcrowded. Both are signs that the place is illegally sublet.

Once sufficient proof of the offence is gathered from the house visit, a meeting with the flat owner is arranged. He or she is given two to three weeks to evict the tenants and to move back in.

First-time offenders are generally fined, unless investigations show their actions to have been particularly blatant.

Ms Chow cited the case of a man who had allowed a moneylender to sublet his flat to repay his loans; when found out, he went to his Members of Parliament for more time to get his tenants to move out.

‘We realised he wasn’t sincere and enforced compulsory acquisition,’ she said. When this happens, the flat owner is returned only the amount he paid for the flat; a penalty is exacted on top of that.

If the owner does not appeal in 28 days, a ‘notice of vesting’ will be imposed. The owner will then have 30 days to clear out and turn over the flat vacant.

That is not all. The offender, his or her spouse and the occupiers of the flat will be barred from buying, renting and occupying a subsidised HDB flat for five years.

In March, the Government said it would step up enforcement against illegal subletting. In the first five months of this year, the HDB carried out checks on 2,600 flats, served four owners with compulsory acquisition orders and fined six others.

An HDB spokesman said: ‘Our stepped-up enforcement action is to ensure that residents do not abuse public housing for monetary gains… depriving others who are in need of housing.’

Besides illegal subletting, estate officers also handle arrears management and lease administration.

Ms Chow said of her job: ‘We do work odd hours, but we get days off in return. It is also satisfying because I feel I’m contributing to the community.’

Source: Straits Times, 7 Aug 2010

AS AT the end of last month, some 42,000 flat owners had registered with the Housing Board to sublet rooms.

Under a new rule introduced on Feb 1, anyone subletting rooms in HDB flats must register within seven days; those who had sublet before that date were given a six-month grace period until July 31 to do so.

This requirement dovetails with efforts by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to eradicate loan-sharking activities and protect HDB residents from falling victim to such activities.

When some people borrow money from loan sharks, they move to a new location but give the loan sharks their previous addresses.

This way, if they fall behind on payments, those living at their former addresses will be the ones harassed by the loan sharks.

The new rule enables HDB to capture the particulars of those who rent rooms in HDB flats and allows MHA to trace the movement of borrowers.

HDB may impose a penalty on those who fail to register their subletting.

The penalty could be a fine of up to $3,000, and for recalcitrant cases, HDB could take back the flat.

Source: Straits Times, 7 Aug 2010

IN AN unprecedented crackdown on illegal subletting, the Housing Board (HDB) has taken action against four flat owners and compulsorily acquired their flats.

These owners did not live in the flats they purchased and sublet their homes without meeting the minimum period of occupation – five years for subsidised flats and three years for non-subsidised flats – or obtaining the HDB’s approval.

Locked out, then found out

The owner sought the HDB’s help in getting into his flat after he was locked out of it.

That was when he was found out. He had allowed his three-room flat in the western part of Singapore to be used as collateral for a loan. His moneylender had sublet the flat as repayment.

After he got back into his flat, the HDB reminded him repeatedly that he had to resume occupation of it and evict the tenants.

But he did neither, even after he was given a grace period.

The HDB thus took over the flat.

Let out too soon

She let out her flat without the HDB’s approval only a year after she had bought the property. The HDB requires home owners to live in their flats for a minimum period before they can let them out.

Though she did as told by the HDB and evicted her tenants, she failed to move back in, and left the flat empty.

The HDB then took over the flat.

Didn’t live in matrimonial home

She bought the flat with her former husband, a foreigner, while they were married.

But she never moved in. Instead, she lived abroad and sublet the flat without meeting the minimum occupation period or getting approval from the HDB.

When their marriage broke down, her ex-husband wrote to the HDB to say that the flat was never intended as their matrimonial home and he had, in fact, never even seen it.

Even after she returned to Singapore, she chose to live with her family and not in her own property.

The HDB proceeded to acquire the flat.

Sublet to religious group

The flat owner lived in another home with her family while she sublet her unit to a religious group.

The flat was compulsorily acquired on the grounds that it was let out without the HDB’s approval and that the owner did not resume occupation.

Source: Straits Times, 29 Jul 2010

Six other flat owners fined, in clampdown on illegal subletting

FOUR Housing Board home owners lost their flats in the first five months of this year, after the HDB launched an unprecedented crackdown on those who let out their flats illegally.

Six others have been fined amounts that ranged from $4,200 to $14,400.

Making good its earlier pledge to clamp down on illegal subletting, HDB inspectors checked 2,600 homes from January to May, four times more than in the preceding five months last year.

Some 2,300 flat owners are in the clear, but of the 300 still being investigated, 59 cases have been classified as suspicious.

The crackdown comes after measures announced in March to ensure that heavily subsidised HDB flats are used as homes, and not as money-making tools.

For example, the minimum occupation period for resale flat buyers before they can sell the flat was lengthened to three years, up from as short as one year, to cool speculative demand for HDB flats.

The Government had said that illegal subletting was not rampant, but it also gave the assurance that it would step up enforcement against owners who flouted the rules to milk rental income.

The HDB confirmed that this is the biggest number of flats checked and compulsorily acquired over a five-month time frame.

In the preceding two years, the HDB repossessed four flats out of 56 illegal subletting cases. The other 52 were fined amounts ranging from $1,000 to $21,000.

‘HDB flats are primarily meant for owner occupation. Subletting of HDB flats without HDB’s approval is an infringement of the lease conditions,’ its spokesman said yesterday.

As of the end of last month, 30,500 HDB flat owners, or 3.6 per cent, out of a total of 841,000 flat owners have obtained approval to sublet their flats.

In the latest blitz, the spokesman said that in all 10 cases, the flat owners were not living in their homes and had sublet the whole flat without HDB approval.

She said a fine would generally be imposed on first-time offenders, unless their actions were particularly blatant, such as repeatedly ignoring HDB reminders to evict tenants.

Then, under the HDB Act, it would resort to compulsory acquisition, returning the owner only the value at which he had bought the flat.

A penalty would also be deducted from that amount.

The HDB cited one case in which a woman bought a flat with her then-husband but stayed overseas all the while.

When the marriage broke up, the ex-husband confirmed that they had no intention of living in the flat, which had been sublet before the expiry of the minimum occupation period.

One owner even allowed his moneylender to let out his flat to collect rent that constituted his debt repayment.

The HDB also found cases where flat owners skirted subletting rules by locking up one room and renting out the rest of the flat.

The rules mandate that owners can sublet their whole flats only after they fulfil the minimum occupation periods of five years for subsidised flats and three years for non-subsidised flats.

Approval must be obtained from the HDB, with caps on the number of sub-tenants allowed, based on flat size.

Former chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development Charles Chong said the crackdown will ‘send out a very strong message that the flats are not for people to make money, but for accommodation’.

There had been public concern that illegal subletting was indirectly linked to rising resale prices.

However, property analysts interviewed said that stricter enforcement is unlikely to have a significant impact on the market.

Said group managing director Danny Yeo of Knight Frank real estate consultancy: ‘There are many illegal subletters, but compared to the total number of flats available, the numbers are small.’

Mr Gerard Thomas, marketing director of SHL Realty, said: ‘There are also external factors to consider, for example, what the economy is like, whether there are any disasters.’

Mr Thomas added that the stricter enforcement would reduce the incentive for people to sublet illegally because the ‘price is too high to pay’.

About three in every 10 cases in the crackdown came from public tip-offs.

While flat owners who rent out rooms do not need HDB approval, they must register the subletting details within a week, on pain of a fine of up to $3,000.

This move helps track tenants who use the flat addresses to borrow from loan sharks.

A six-month grace period for those who had sublet their flats before the start of February expires at the end of this month.

Those who want to report on illegal subletting can call the HDB on 1800-555-6370.

Source: Straits Times, 29 Jul 2010

THE Housing and Development Board has cracked down on unauthorised sub-letting. Almost four times as many checks were carried out in the first five months of this year – 2,600, versus 690 between August and December 2009.

About 70 per cent of the 2,600 checks were routine inspections. The others were carried out after public feedback.

HDB said it has taken compulsory acquisition action against four flat owners this year and fined six others for unauthorised sub-letting.

Those whose flats were repossessed were not staying in them and had sub-let without HDB approval.

Owners are allowed to sub-let whole flats only after occupying them for at least five years if they are subsidised flats, or three years if they are non-subsidised.

Owners must also obtain written approval from HDB before sub-letting an entire flat. Different flat types have different limits on the number of sub-tenants allowed. One and two-room flats are allowed four sub-tenants, three-rooms are allowed six and larger flats are allowed up to nine sub-tenants.

Approval is not required for sub-letting of rooms, but flat owners must let HDB know within seven days of doing so.

Source: Business Times, 29 Jul 2010