Flat owners with outstanding mortgage loans of more than $5,000 can now take up the LBS “as long as the proceeds from the lease sale are sufficient to fully discharge the loan.
The rule that requires Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat owners to have an outstanding loan of not more than $5,000 to be able to avail of the Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS) have been relaxed in February 2013.
LBS allows older HDB flat owners to sell part of their flat’s lease back to the Housing Board to boost their retirement income.
When LBS was first rolled out in March 2009, “HDB flat owners had to have an outstanding mortgage loan of no more than $5,000 to be eligible,” said the ministry in answering a Parliament question by Member of Parliament Gan Thiam Poh, who asked on the number of appeals it received from flat owners who wanted to apply for the scheme but have not yet fully paid the loan due to financial difficulty.
On whether the ministry will change the rule for said applicants, it noted that this rule has already been relaxed since February 2013.
Thus, flat owners with outstanding mortgage loans of more than $5,000 can now take up the LBS “as long as the proceeds from the lease sale are sufficient to fully discharge the loan”.
Victor Kang, Digital Content Specialist at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email victorkang@propertyguru.com.sg
