2024-04-29 28Hse Editor
Recently, the gruesome murder of model and Abby Choi Tin-fung sent shockwaves through the city. Case aside, the incident has also raised concerns regarding the exemption of inspection for green form property purchases, whether there are loopholes in the current measures, and whether the government needs to plug them.
One of the suspects in the case, Choi’s former father-in-law Kwong Kau, held a luxury flat in Kadoorie Hill in Ho Man Tin in 2019, but he was still eligible to use the Green Form to purchase a flat in Sheung Man Court, Kwai Chung under the Home Ownership Scheme for HK$2.18 million the following year, which drew district-wide concern.
It is reported that the price of the flat in Kadoorie Hill was HK$72.8 million. Choi, who already owned a residential property, bought the unit in the name of Kwong’s father (a first-time homebuyer) to save 15 per cent off on the non-first home buyer's stamp duty i.e. HK$10.92 million. This is a common practice of "borrowing from someone" to buy a flat. In this case, the first-time homebuyer would be able to pay lower stamp duty – only 4.25 per cent i.e. about HK$3.09 million, a difference of more than HK$7.8 million.
Regarding the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS), some questioned whether there would be information concealment involved. This is unlikely, because under the current mechanism, public residential housing (PRH) tenants apply for the HOS with a ‘green form’, and there are no restrictions on income, assets, and property ownership. Therefore, even if Kwong had private housing, he could exchange public housing for HOS housing, reflecting loopholes in the policy.
In addition, PRH tenants are only required to declare their income to the Housing Department every two years if they have lived in their flat for 10 years or more, while those who have resided for less than 10 years are not required to do so. It is possible that the person involved was not in possession of the property before the reporting date was required. However, if he was reported to the Housing Department, he would still have to move out of the unit regardless of the period of time he has lived in public housing.
As we know, the supply of public housing is very short and the waiting time has hit a record high. Therefore, it is must be well used and allocated accordingly to those in genuine need. As at the end of December last year, the average waiting time for general applicants was 5.5 years, and for elderly one-person applicants, 3.9 years.
In response to public queries about the policy, the Director of Housing, Agnes Wong Tin-yu, said the government has never reviewed the income and assets of ‘green form’ applicants to encourage those who could afford it to surrender their PRH flats. Later, the Housing Bureau said it would review whether PRH tenants should be required to have income and asset restrictions when purchasing HOS flats with Green Form status, or consider further restrictions on relevant arrangements, and would also consider increasing penalties to prevent abuse of the PRH system. They said due to the complex nature of the situation, the issues would need to be discussed with the Housing Authority.
In addition, Green Form applicants can also apply to buy Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Scheme and Tenants Purchase Scheme flats, again without having to pass any income or asset limit review. We often see reports of new record prices for flats in public housing estates, which is why many people say that there are many "invisible tycoons" in public housing.
The above-mentioned incidents are probably just the tip of the iceberg, so the government should speed up the review of policies, such as proactively checking the assets of applicants, or changing it to require regular declaration of income and other information to the Housing Department no matter how long they have lived in a public housing unit, so as to avoid abuse of public housing schemes.
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