What You Should Know Before Renting Out Your HDB Flat

One has to comply with certain criteria and guidelines set by The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Housing Board before he is able to sublet his HDB unit. The most common rule an owner has to know is that he can only lease the whole unit or rooms for long-term stays of 6 months or more with compliance to the conditions as stated below.

(a) There are no alterations of property layout as in internal partitioning to create more rooms.

(b) There is a minimum space of 10sqm allocated to each occupant with 8 occupants being the maximum of people allowed to reside in a residential unit regardless of unit size.

(c) There should only be 1 single tenancy agreement per residential unit to cover the number of occupants in the case of master tenancies or en-bloc leasing-out. This condition does not apply to single property or individual landlord who rents out rooms within his unit to different tenants.

Apart from the above, the owner will have to satisfy the 3-years or 5-years Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) depending on the purchase condition of flats. The MOP varies for subsidized and non-subsidized flats such as the below.

(a) Subsidized flats purchased directly from HDB or the open market with a CPF housing grant has to be occupied for a minimum of 5 years.

(b) Non-subsidized flats purchased from the open market without a CPF housing grant has to be occupied for a minimum of 3 years if the purchase application was submitted before 30^th August 2010.

(c) Non-subsidized flats purchased from the open market without a CPF housing grant has to be occupied for a minimum of 5 years if the purchase application was submitted on or after 30^th August 2010.

Landlords must also ensure that the tenants they are subletting their units or rooms to are of Singapore citizens, Singapore permanent residents or non-citizens who are legally residing in Singapore holding Employment Passes, S Passes, Work Permits, Student Passes, Dependant Passes, Professional Visit Passes or Long-Term Social Visit Passes.

Last but not least, do note that HDB owners will be charged an amount of SGD20 as an administration fee for each subletting application.

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© Yee Woan Fung, Yvvone