Appeals Received for Waiver of Minimum Occupation Period for HDB Flats

Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked the Minister for National Development (a) in the past five years, how many appeals have been received for waiver of the minimum occupation period for HDB flats; (b) of these, how many have been successful; (c) what are the common reasons for the appeals; and (d) whether HDB will review the policy while balancing the social objective needs.

The Housing Development Board (HDB) does not actively track the number of unique appeals from flat owners who wish to sell their flat before fulfilling their minimum occupation period (MOP), as the data may include duplicate and repeated requests. In the last five years, HDB has given approval to about 5,000 households to sell their flat on the open market before meeting their MOP. The reasons for such exceptions include financial hardship, divorce, or the demise of the owner. For comparison, over the same period, there were about 112,000 resale transactions.

The MOP remains important to ensure that flat owners purchase HDB flats with the intent of living in the flats themselves, instead of quickly reselling the flats for profit. This safeguards HDB flats for households with genuine housing needs. It also deters the speculative purchase of HDB flats, and thus helps to keep HDB flats affordable. HDB will continue to assess appeals for a waiver of the MOP on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the specific circumstances of the flat owners and their families.