MND shared that for those who have exhausted their two HDB housing loans, HDB will exercise “flexibility on a case-by-case basis to provide another HDB housing loan to those who are in urgent need of housing”.
The HDB housing loan is intended to help flat buyers finance their home acquisition, and all flat buyers are deemed to have taken the housing loan once it is disbursed, regardless of whether they subsequently profit from the ownership of the flat, said the Ministry of National Development (MND) in Parliament on Monday (5 April).
Eligible Singapore citizen households are allowed to take up to two HDB housing loans at the concessionary interest rate, subject to credit assessment and prevailing mortgage loan criteria.
“This is generally sufficient to meet the needs of most flat buyers,” said the ministry.
Nevertheless, for those who have already taken two housing loans from HDB, MND shared that HDB exercises “flexibility on a case-by-case basis to provide another HDB housing loan to those who have exhausted their financing options, and are in urgent need of housing”.
MND made the statement in response to MP Jamus Jerome Lim’s question on whether HDB will consider waiving the two-time limit for its housing loan eligibility (HLE) where individuals have derived no direct monetary benefit from their ownership of the property.
He also asked whether HDB would review its advisory protocol for HDB loan officers to fully explain the consequences of including one’s name into HDB flat ownership following the death of a parent to preclude instances where names are included “for safety” but inadvertently result in the applicant losing one of their two opportunities to obtain a HLE loan.
MND noted that individuals applying for an HDB concessionary loan “to include their name as a co-owner in a flat to replace their parent following their parent’s demise are advised at various points that they will be considered as having taken one HDB concessionary loan”.
The HDB Loan Eligibility letter, for instance, underscores that all loan applicants will be considered to have taken an HDB housing loan once the loan is disbursed.
“This point is similarly included in the Terms and Conditions in the application for a change of flat ownership to include the child as a co-owner,” it said.
“As an added measure, HDB staff also highlight this implication to the applicants on the completion day of the change in flat ownership.”
With this, MND advises flat buyers who wanted to preserve the option to take up an HDB housing loan in future to instead take out a mortgage loan from financial institutions regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
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Victor Kang, Digital Content Specialist at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this story, email: victorkang@propertyguru.com.sg
