2024-04-29 28Hse Editor
The Housing Authority's Subsidised Housing Committee (SHC) has approved the regular sale of Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) recovered flats. The new batch of TPS recovered flats will be sold under the 2023 Home Ownership Scheme (HOS).
What is the Tenants Purchase Scheme? It is a scheme for the sale of public rental housing (PRH) flats to enable PRH tenants to buy a flat at a low price, so more Hongkongers can fulfil their dream of home ownership.
Cleresa Wong Pie-yue, chairwoman of the Housing Authority's Subsidised Housing Committee, said that an average of 1,200 flats would be recovered each year. After accumulating a certain amount, they would be sold alongside flats under the They would be added to the Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Scheme (GSH) or the Home Ownership Scheme for sale. Because of this, it is important to note that recovered flats might not be available in every sales round.
The public housing units are located in 39 housing estates throughout Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, aged between 30 and 40 years old. The more popular estates include Lei Tung Estate, Cheung Fat Estate, Fung Tak Estate, and Hin Keng Estate, among others. Flat prices range from HK$140,000 to HK$1.23 million, with an average of about HK$500,000 per unit.
Although the Scheme will reduce the number of flats available for allocation to applicants on the Waiting List, it will not increase the overall waiting time for PRH. The Scheme targets Green Form applicants and eligible applicants under the Express Flat Allocation Scheme. As the Scheme will not be extended to White Form applicants for the time being, White Form applicants can only continue to participate in the HOS "lucky draw".
Before the lifting of social distancing measures, buyers were unable to arrange flat inspections and had to rely on sales information, videos, and photos prepared by the Housing Department (HD), without conducting on-site inspections, before buying a flat. Subsequently, there were cases of unfortunate buyers purchasing flats next to roach-infested homes. Does the Housing Department have any measures to protect buyers this time?
The Housing Department said that it would try its best to make arrangements for viewing flats as far as possible. Buyers will only have the right to refuse once. If they do not purchase the flat following their second inspection, they will be deemed to have dropped out of the scheme.
The TPS can help people fulfil their dream of becoming a homeowner, but there are some things to note. As with other housing schemes of the Housing Department, there are restrictions on the transfer of flats under the TPS. In the absence of a premium, owners cannot rent out their flats and can only resell to Green Form residents, not buyers in the free market.
In addition, most TPS estates have mixed ownership. In other words, tenants of the same public housing estate include both tenants and owners. The former does not have to pay management fees and are provided with maintenance and repair services by the Housing Authority. The latter have to pay management fees and are responsible for maintenance.
Therefore, the mixed management model has caused many management and maintenance problems. For example, let’s say there are two public housing units where the upper floor has been sold to a rent-to-purchase (TPS) buyer and the lower floor is occupied by a PRH tenant. If there is water leakage on the upper floor unit, causing water stains on the ceiling and walls of the lower floor unit, the fact that the upper floor unit has been sold means that the Housing Department does not own the flat and may not intervene to resolve the problem.
The regularisation of recovered TPS flats will no doubt benefit Green Formers. First, they will have more home options. Secondly, buyers will be able to buy a flat at a lower market price. Should they apply for a first-time mortgage from a bank, their mortgage loan is guaranteed by the Housing Authority. Separately, it is possible to buy a public housing unit with no down payment. This is particularly attractive to those who are unable to afford a down payment.
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