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Following is a question by the Hon Ng Leung-sing and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, in the Legislative Council today (February 20):
Question :
The number of applicants on the Waiting List (WL) for public rental housing (PRH) has risen sharply in recent years, with the current number exceeding 210 000. Some PRH applicants have pointed out that the living environment of quite a number of grass-roots people waiting for PRH is deteriorating, and rental expenditure is also an onerous burden on those people. Yet, the media have reported that the household incomes of some PRH tenants have far exceeded the Waiting List Income Limit (WLIL) but they have not vacated and surrendered their PRH flats, and they even leave their flats unoccupied or sub-let the flats for gain. For example, some PRH tenants who have been earning a monthly income of more than $70,000 to $80,000 over the years may continue to occupy their PRH flats under the current Housing Subsidy Policy because their assets have not exceeded 84 times of WLIL. There have been comments that such a situation is unfair to the large number of people waiting desperately for PRH and has already aroused their concerns and dissatisfaction. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the respective numbers of cases of making false declarations of household income and assets, leaving PRH flats vacant, illegal sub-letting of flats and other kinds of abuse of PRH resources in the past three years;
(b) given that the 2013 Policy Address has mentioned that the "Housing Department will step up its efforts to combat the abuse of PRH resources", whether the Government has formulated tougher measures to combat the abuse of PRH resources; if it has, of the anticipated effectiveness of such measures; and
(c) regarding those PRH tenants whose household incomes have far exceeded WLIL and therefore can afford to rent private housing, whether the authorities will consider demanding them to vacate and surrender their PRH flats, so as to expedite the allocation of PRH flats to people who are currently on WL, thereby ensuring a rational allocation of PRH resources?
Reply:
President,
According to the Government's housing policy, the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) would provide public rental housing (PRH) for low income families who cannot afford private rental accommodation. The HA always works to ensure the rational allocation of limited public housing resources to the households that are most in need. In 1987, the HA has implemented the Housing Subsidy Policy (HSP). This was followed in 1996 by the Policy on Safeguarding Rational Allocation of Public Housing Resources (SRA). The policy objective of these measures was to reduce the level of subsidy given to those less in need. Pursuant to the policies, PRH tenants with both household income and assets exceed the prescribed income limits (i.e. exceeding the Waiting List (WL) income limits by three times) and assets limits (i.e. exceeding the WL income limits by 84 times), they have to move out from their PRH flats.
Under the prevailing mechanism, tenants who have lived in PRH for 10 years or longer are required to declare to the Housing Department (HD) their household income biennially. HD's frontline management staff will conduct initial checking on the income and assets declarations from all PRH tenants. In addition, the HD's Central Team will carry out in-depth investigations on randomly-selected cases, suspected cases and all cases paying double-rent.
At the same time, the HD has put in place effective measures to detect tenancy abuse cases, which include non-occupation, unauthorised occupation and illegal use of premises. Frontline management staff may detect PRH tenancy abuse through their day-to-day management duties or during the biennial flat inspections, and will refer any suspected cases to the Central Team for in-depth investigation.
My reply to the questions raised by the Hon Ng Leung-sing is as follows:
(a) There are various reasons for the HA to recover PRH flats which include households surrendering their flats after purchasing flats from private market or through the Home Ownership Scheme, death of single tenants, self-surrender by elderly tenants after admission into elderly homes and recovery of flats by the HD due to tenancy control actions, etc. It is also the case that in the course of investigation into tenancy abuse cases, some PRH households might voluntarily surrender their flats to the HD. Others simply abandon the flat or cease to pay rent upon finding out that they are being investigated, since they are well aware that the flat will be recovered due to tenancy abuse. The HD eventually recovered the flat because of rent-arrears. As it is difficult to classify the relevant cases, the HD does not keep the breakdown of the statistics. On the whole, the HA on average recovered some 7 000 PRH flats from existing tenants for reallocation to the WL applicants. Among these recovered PRH flats, some 400 flats were recovered through the issue of Notice-to-quit as a direct result of investigations into tenancy abuse, of which about 75% are non-occupation cases.
(b) To accomplish HD's commitment to tackle tenancy abuses, in 2013/14, we plan to implement the following additional measures -
(i) To redeploy 30 extra experienced estate staff to the Central Team to step up action to tackle tenancy abuses and to conduct 5 000 additional checkings of tenants' income/ assets declarations;
(ii) To carry out a two-week special Inspection Operation in 30 blocks, selected from six management districts in accordance with individual circumstances of estates such as complaint cases, manpower resources etc, by frontline management staff in mid-2013 to further the level of understanding of tenants' occupancy conditions and to detect suspected tenancy abuse cases;
(iii) To conduct intensive patrols in older PRH estates which are more prone to tenancy abuse;
(iv) To conduct online patrols of the world wide web with a view to detecting cases of sub-letting of PRH flats;
(v) To step up monitoring measures by security guards to detect suspected abuse cases since mid-2013;
(vi) To hold partnering functions with all the Estate Management Advisory Committees to promote tenants' awareness of the value of public housing resources and to encourage tenants and the public to report suspected abuse cases; and
(vii) To strengthen the education and promotion programme to promote public awareness of the need to respect and husband carefully public housing resources.
(c) As mentioned above, tenants who have been living in PRH for 10 years or longer are required to declare their household income biennially under the HSP. Those with household incomes exceeding the prescribed income limits are required to pay 1.5 times or double net rent plus rates. Tenants who opt not to declare income levels will be required to pay double net rent plus rates. For tenants paying double-rent, they are further required to declare their assets biennially to determine their eligibility of continuous stay in PRH. If their assets exceed the prescribed limits, they have to move out from their PRH flats by end-March of the year. According to the HD's figures, as at end-December 2012, about 3% of PRH households are paying additional rent or market rent (Note) (please refer to the Annex for details). In the last year, 80 well-off tenants were required to move out from PRH.
Note: PRH tenants with household incomes between two to three times of WL income limits are required to pay 1.5 times net rent plus rates. For those with household incomes exceed the WL income limits by three times need to pay double net rent plus rates. 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).
Ends/Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Issued at HKT 16:18
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