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Following is a question by the Hon Mrs Regina Ip, and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, in the Legislative Council today (February 20):
Question:
To ensure rational allocation of public rental housing (PRH) resources, it is stipulated under the Housing Subsidy Policy of the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) that tenants who have been living in PRH flats for 10 years or more are required to declare their household income biennially. Tenants with a household income exceeding the Waiting List Income Limit (WLIL) by two times and those with a household income exceeding WLIL by three times (or who opt not to declare their income) are required to pay 1.5 times and two times net rent respectively, plus rates. If the assets of the latter have exceeded 84 times of the WLIL (or who opt not to declare their assets) in the next cycle of declaration, they have to vacate and surrender their PRH flats within 12 months, during which they are required to pay a licence fee equivalent to double net rent plus rates or market rent (whichever is the higher) for temporary stay at their flats. According to the statistics provided by the Housing Department (HD), the number of PRH tenants who are required to pay additional rent (commonly known as "well-off tenants") has been increasing in recent years. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of well-off tenants and its percentage in the total number of PRH tenants as at end of January 2013, together with a breakdown by the rent payable by them, namely the 1.5 times rent, double rent and market rent;
(b) of the respective numbers of cases in which flat visits were conducted by HD to inspect if PRH flats were misused in each of the past five years, and among them, the number of cases referred to a Central Team for in-depth investigation and the number of cases in which the flats were recovered ultimately;
(c) of the respective numbers of PRH tenants who purchased Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats from HA in each of the past five years; during the same period, the number of PRH tenants who purchased HOS flats in the HOS Secondary Market and the percentage of such transactions in the total number of transactions in that market; and
(d) whether the Government will review the existing policy and provide incentives to encourage those PRH tenants who no longer need subsidised housing to vacate and surrender their flats, with a view to expediting the turnover of PRH flats and ensuring rational allocation of PRH resources?
Reply:
President,
The Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) is committed to ensuring the rational allocation of limited public housing resources. Tenants who have been living in public rental housing (PRH) for ten years or more are required to declare their household income biennially under the Housing Subsidy Policy (HSP). Those with household incomes between two to three times of Waiting List (WL) income limits are required to pay 1.5 times net rent plus rates. Those with household incomes that exceed the WL income limits by three times need to pay double net rent plus rates. Tenants who opt not to declare their household income will automatically be required to pay double net rent plus rates. For households paying double-rent, they are further required to declare their assets biennially under the Policy on Safeguarding Rational Allocation of Public Housing Resources (SRA). Households who opt not to declare assets, or whose household assets exceed the prevailing assets limits (84 times of WL asset limits) have to vacate their PRH flats. If tenants have difficulties in moving out the flat by the specified date, they may apply for a licence from the HA to temporarily stay in their PRH flats for a period of not more than 12 months, during which period, they need to pay a licence fee equivalent to the double net rent plus rates or market rent (whichever is the higher).
My reply to the questions raised by the Hon Regina Ip is as follows:
(a) According to the HA records, as at end-December 2012, about 3% of PRH households pay additional rent or market rent. Details are at Table 1.
(b) To safeguard the rational allocation of limited public housing resources, the HD has established a Biennial Inspection System (BIS) to detect tenancy abuses. Under the BIS, estate management staff will conduct flat visits to some 730 000 PRH households territory-wide at least once every two years and take the opportunity during flat visits to detect tenancy abuses. Suspected cases (such as abandoning the flats, sub-letting the flat in whole or part, etc) found during flat visits will be referred to HD's Central Team for in-depth investigations. The Central Team will investigate all complaint cases as well as carry out investigations into randomly-selected cases. In the past five years (2007/08 to 2011/12), the Central Team has investigated some 8 000 suspicious occupancy-related cases on an annual basis.
There are various reasons for the HA to recover PRH flats which include households surrendering their flats after purchasing flats from the private market or through the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS), death of single tenants, self-surrender of elderly tenants after admission into elderly homes and recovery of flats by the HD due to tenancy control actions, etc. In recent years, the HA on average has recovered some 7 000 PRH flats from existing tenants for reallocation to the WL applicants annually. According to HD's record, about 400 PRH flats were recovered through the issue of Notice-to-quit as a result of investigations into tenancy abuse cases.
(c) Both PRH tenants and Green Form (GF) Certificate Holders (Note 1) can purchase HOS flats put up for sale by the HA with GF status without being subject to income and asset limits etc, or HOS flats with premium not yet paid on the HOS Secondary Market.
The numbers of PRH tenants who have purchased HOS flats put up for sale by the HA with GF status since 2008/09 are at Table 2.
The numbers of PRH tenants who have purchased HOS flats with premium not yet paid on the HOS Secondary Market with GF status during the same period, and the percentage of those transactions on the HOS Secondary Market (Note 2) in the respective years, are at Table 3.
(d) The HA strives to ensure the rational allocation of valuable public housing resources to households in need and has been implementing various measures to encourage those tenants who are not in need of housing subsidy to move out and surrender their flats to the HA for allocation to needy families on WL. Details are as follows -
(i) In order to encourage tenants without the need for PRH for the time being or in the short run (including those admitted to aged homes, joining the Social Welfare Department's Portable Comprehensive Social Security Assistance in Guangdong and Fujian, with an operational need to live in quarters provided by employers, working overseas, or admitted to drug rehabilitation centres/imprisoned/hospitalised for treatment) to surrender the flats, the HA would issue a Letter of Assurance (LA) to those eligible tenants. They can redeem the LA for rehousing to PRH if they have a housing need in future.
(ii) The relatively well-off tenants can make use of their GF Status without being subject to income and asset limits, etc to purchase HOS flats from the HA or through the Secondary Market Scheme.
In addition, the current review of the Long Term Housing Strategy will consider, inter alia, the use of public housing resources and will propose feasible measures to further advance the rational use of public housing resources for the consideration of the HA.
Note 1: GF Certificate Holders are referring mainly to those successful WL applicants whose eligibility for PRH has been established and who are due for allocation of PRH within one year.
Note 2: At present, owners of HOS flats can sell their flats to GF buyers without payment of premium from the third year counting from the date of the first assignment. In response to the home aspiration of those with White Form (WF) status in the transitional period before the first batch of new HOS flats are completed in 2016/17, 5 000 WF buyers each year will be allowed to purchase HOS flats with premium not yet paid under an interim scheme. The scheme was open for application from 4 to 18 January this year. As such, as at December 2012, all transactions of HOS flats with premium not yet paid on the HOS Secondary Markets involved GF buyers only.
Ends/Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Issued at HKT 15:37
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