Written Answer by Ministry of National Development on proceeds received by seniors who took up the Lease Buyback Scheme

Oct 7, 2019

Ms Foo Mee Har: To ask the Minister for National Development (a) what are the average amounts of funds that seniors receive in CPF and cash by monetising their HDB flats through the Lease Buy Back Scheme; and (b) how has this scheme boosted their retirement adequacy whilst continuing to live out their retirement in their flats.

Answer:

The Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS) was enhanced in April 2015 to extend to 4-room flats and provide seniors with more choices in the length of lease to retain. Since then, seniors who took up the LBS received average proceeds of $177,000 per household, including the LBS cash bonus. The proportion of proceeds that they receive in their CPF Retirement Account (RA) and in cash depends on their CPF RA balances before they took up the LBS. In general, seniors who had higher CPF RA balances to begin with would get a higher proportion of their proceeds in cash.
 
After taking up the LBS, most seniors have enough CPF RA savings to benefit from a lifelong income stream of about $1,000 per month on a household basis under CPF LIFE. Beyond that, most seniors also receive some of their LBS proceeds in cash, in addition to the cash bonus.