Hi, I am a Singaporean who has been using a dating app and I met a ‘China’ girl and met up with her. I put within inverted commas because she is a naturalised SG citizen from China (came to SG at around age 14), who got her citizenship somewhere in 2018.
This information is from my interaction with her and is likely not 100% correct and complete, but I will give as much info as possible as to what I have gotten.
During the date, she mentioned she has her own house now. I thought that she got a condo since she is single and under 35. She then said she managed to get a 4-room resale flat in Punggol in 2019 (she is lucky too, right at the point of the SG property boom), and explained that she got it through an appeal to the HDB. She managed to get the flat by appealing that her parents would come to SG to stay with her. I believe she is appealing under the non-citizen family scheme based on my research. This is a combination is an SG citizen and foreign parents which therefore fulfils the criteria of forming a family nucleus, which is HDB’s main guiding principle. This scheme should be more unheard of as compared to the non-citizen spouse scheme.
The 4-room flat has 3 rooms. She stays in one room. She rents out the second room to a female China friend for a few years since the start up till now. She claims that she has been leaving the third vacant the majority of the time since it is reserved for her parents, who could not come to SG because of covid restrictions. However, she is currently renting her parents’ room out to another female China friend for a few months while her condo in SG is undergoing renovation.
Questionable points:
- Under this scheme, I believe her parents would have to dispose of their property in China within 6 months in order to qualify for the non-citizen family scheme. I’m not sure if she did that because from what I heard from her, her mum still has a house in China. Also, it is a fact that her parents are still staying the majority of the time in China the past few years, so I’m not sure where they are staying of they sold off their house there, unless she made special arrangements where they are living with her relatives.
- I’m not sure what the nuances here are in terms of this disposing of property arrangement. There might be some loophole here as well, since it might be much harder to track the number of property one has overseas of SG, and it could be easy to falsely report.
- She mentioned that her parents could not come back to SG because of covid restrictions etc but I think that should be more of an excuse. Even back then when covid restrictions were strict, one could still serve quarantine notices in order to come back to SG.
- The second point also leads to my point that her arrangement with her parents could be that she did not intend for her parents to be staying in SG permanently right from the start when she made her appeal. She claimed that her parents would have stayed in SG for a few months to half a year per year, but I doubt this as well - this kind of ‘half-overseas-half-SG’ living arrangement long term is quite unheard of and I think it is unsustainable in different aspects.
- Since she managed to get her HDB flat earlier as compared to other singles before 35, is there any special clause in her appeal? Something like her parents would need to be staying in SG for at least a certain period of time, until if she reaches 35 (the parity age where she would be able to get a HDB without any appeals)? So that she is fulfilling the criteria of forming the family nucleus?
- If there isn’t, then I think this could be a loophole especially for because newly minted SG citizens could easily appeal under this scheme and get a flat as a single
- Is she allowed to rent out just one room in the first place for her 4-room flat with 3 rooms? The arrangement: She stays in one room, her parents in the other, and there is still one vacant room? This might be legit because I believe the general HDB rules allow for this as long as the owner is staying in the unit, before MOP.
- Is there any clause in her appeal that forbids her from renting out 2 rooms instead of 1 room? Since her parents have to stay in one room and herself in the other. If not, then again this could be a loophole. Her parents could simply come to SG for a few days a year (like a short holiday to visit her), and for the vast majority of the rest of the year, she could be renting it out to gain rental income.
- Even if she is allowed to rent out just one room and even if there is no special arrangements required to be followed in her appeal, she did mention that she is also renting out another room to her China friend who is currently renovating her condo and has nowhere to stay, for a few months.
- This is questionable as well as the HDB renting rules states that one can only rent it out for at least 6 months and above anyway
- I’m not sure if she received any HDB grants since her arrangement is special under the appeal for the non-citizen family scheme. If she did, then this is again a loophole. The grants should be ‘locked’ or ‘frozen’ until she reaches age 35 so as to reach parity for the other singles who could only buy HDB at age 35.
If the above are indeed loopholes, single foreigners who turn singaporeans could easily exploit these loopholes and apply for this non-citizen family scheme. I am also feeling quite unjustified because I myself is also a single Singaporean (and a locally born one) but as compared to a newly minted single SG citizen, I am being disadvantaged in getting a HDB. I also made an appeal to HDB to get a flat myself (due to family issues, will not elaborate here) and got rejected by HDB.
What I allege that she is doing: She planned this appeal all along and went ahead with it once she got her SG citizenship in 2018. All these were part of her plan in order to get a HDB herself in order to rent out the rooms to get the income to pay off her mortgage, and so that she can save the money instead of getting a condo which is much more expensive. This can save her the effort of finding accommodation arrangements (e.g. hotel) when her parents indeed come to SG to visit her every year. At the same time, she also gets to gain from the capital appreciation by getting a ‘headstart’ to get her flat about 5 years earlier as opposed to getting it at age 35. The appreciation is applicable because the flat she chose is still new as of her time of buying the resale, it has only just MOP-ed at 5 years old. One could argue that she is taking advantage of public funds/taxpayers money because HDB is subsidised housing.
I basically questioned her actions for all the above but she insisted that she did nothing wrong and everything she is doing is within her legal rights and rules of the HDB.
Let me know what you think. Is everything above within the legal rights of her (parents not staying in SG and then renting out the rooms)? If yes, are these considered loopholes within the HDB rules?
If HDB and other authorities like ICA would like to investigate any of these, I believe they should be able to do so easily by:
- Verifying the arrival and departure dates that her parents are coming into SG. This would be an indication as to whether her parents are fulfilling the criteria of staying in SG within the contract of her appeal, if there is any
- Verify the period of tenanting of her 2 rooms to 2 tenants - if she is not allowed to tenant out any rooms until she is 35, or not allowed to tenant out more than 1 room until she is 35. Unless she also did not register her friend as a tenant and is allowing her for a short term stay <6 months, that itself is illegal
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P.s. and Update to all: Just called HDB to report about it. But I told them obviously I do not have any details of her and her address, because obviously she wouldn't give me if she knew she is going to be investigated.
The HDB staff was patient to listen to the above story and help me assess if it is considered lawful or unlawful. Apparently the appeal she made was indeed very likely for her parents to retain their property overseas. The non-resident family scheme can indeed be applied without any appealing in the first place. After which, she is free to rent out the rooms in her flat for her remaining 2 rooms as long as she is staying there.
However, the only possible unlawful part is that she is renting to her friend for the second room for a few months (less than 6) - which if proven true, is actually flouting HDB rules. According to her, in the extreme case, even as a friend, if one needs to stay for an emergency in their friends' house for a few days, that is not allowed by the HDB rules. (people are probably taking the risk if they do that and HDB probably closes one eye on these)
