Written Answer by Ministry of National Development on rent arrears for public rental flats

May 4, 2020

Ms Anthea Ong: To ask the Minister for National Development (a) in the last three years, how many households living in public rental flats have respectively experienced (i) a termination of rental tenancy due to arrears or (ii) have been downgraded to a smaller rental flat due to arrears; (b) how many households currently owe rental arrears to HDB, broken down by duration and amount of arrears; (c) what are the eligibility criteria for financial assistance measures provided by HDB and what does the financial assistance cover; and (d) what is the demographics of the households, in terms of (i) household size (ii) flat type (iii) household monthly income per capita, who received financial assistance measures from HDB.

Answer:

About 5,200 public rental households, or about 10% of all public rental households, are in rent arrears. In terms of value, about 75% of them owe less than $3,000 in rent, and in terms of duration, about half of them owe less than 1 years’ worth of rent. 

HDB takes a compassionate and holistic approach when assisting tenants who are in arrears, and will seek to understand their individual circumstances. HDB has various assistance measures in place to help public rental households in arrears.

For households whose financial circumstances have changed (e.g. household income has fallen), HDB will assist to reduce their monthly rent upon appeal. Tenants who need more time to resolve their arrears are also allowed to pay off the arrears in instalments. HDB also works closely with MSF’s Social Service Offices (SSOs), and will refer households who may be in need of financial assistance to the SSOs. 

For tenants who prefer to move to a smaller rental flat to ease their rental burden, HDB will help to facilitate their transfer. In the last 3 years, HDB assisted 159 households in arrears to move from 2-room flats to 1-room flats. The vast majority of them had 4 persons or fewer in the household. 

Termination of rental tenancies is only taken as a last resort, and would not be solely due to the accumulation of rent arrears. In the last 3 years, there has been only one case of such termination.