Truth of HDB Ownership - 99 Year Leasehold Tenancy

HDB 99 Years Leasehold Tenancy Purchase

The Prime Minister has tried to confuse or sidestep the FUNDAMENTAL Question of "HDB OWNERSHIP". What types of Ownership are we having when we buy a HDB flat?

Many people have correctly pointed out with FACTUAL illustration of that little paper you sign when you purchase your HDB flat, regardless whether it is new BTO or resale HDB flats.

It is a purchase of HDB 99 year TENANCY OR WHATEVER is left of the tenancy agreement. This is NOT the usual property sake and purchase agreement.

This is why you will NEVER be issued a strata titles because what you have bought is only a long term, paid in advanced, tenancy agreement.

This is also why when you want to SUBLET out your flat, you have to get permission from the REAL OWNER, HDB.

Thus, PM Lee is Totally wrong to say that HDB "ownership" is the same as private property ownership because they own DIFFERENT things altogether. HDB ownership refers to the long term tenancy agreement while the private property ownership refers to the ownership of property, including the land.

This is also why when Gov wants to take away your car park or any space under your block to build anything, they don't need to pay you single cent because you don't own it! But if it is from private property, they will have to pay the private owners!

Similarly, all car park revenues from your HDB car parks will go to HDB, not HDB tenants, while for condominiums which decided to collect car park fees from visitors, the revenue will go to the management committee collecting on behalf of owners which is used to supplement maintenance fees.

HDB LONG TERM TENANCY ownership is the first of its kind in the world which hoodwinked people into thinking they are really owning a property or land but the hard truth is, they own nothing but the long term tenancy agreement!

This is the REAL truth of HDB "OWNERSHIP".

Goh Meng Seng

Rebuttal to PM Lee's comment on HDB Leasehold is the same as Private Property

Rebuttal to PM Lee's comment on HDB Leasehold is the same as Private Property

Our PM Lee has made the following comment during a book launch:

"I find this argument frankly amazing. Many private properties are held on 99-year leases too, and yet nobody argues that they are merely being rented," said Mr Lee. "HDB lessees have all the rights over their flats that owners of such leasehold private properties have. You can live in it, you can transact it, you can bequeath it to you children. In fact HDB owners enjoy extra privileges because HDB flats get upgraded from time to time, with generous government funding."


1) Manay Private Properties are held on 99 year leases but they do have FULL rights to their properties and LAND. Eg. they could FENCE up their properties, decide on their own landscaping, rent out their properties without much restrictions, decide on their own when and how much they could sell their properties and do Enbloc redevelopment.

2) Private Properties owners also own their land for that leasehold period with strata tittles accorded.

3) However, HDB lessees DO NOT own their land with strata titles. Could PM Lee provide the proof that HDB lessees own their land with strata titles?

4) HDB lessees DO NOT have FULL rights to their HDB flats. They only have LIMITED rights, restricted by all the HDB rules, regulations and law.

5) HDB lessees cannot decide anything about the land their HDB land sits on. They cannot fence their blocks up or employ security guards.

6) Even when it comes to Enbloc, only HDB could decide when it could be done and only HDB could buy back all the HDB flats for Enbloc.

7) HDB Lessees cannot even sell their flats FREELY to anyone, unlike Private Properties.

8) Ironically, since HDB is the LAND LORD which owns the all the land that HDB flats sit on, why should HDB lessees be asked to pay part of the upgrading fees? It is the responsible of the LAND OWNER to maintain the infrastructure built on the land, is it not? How could PM Lee turn around and said that HDB lessees are enjoying some "privilege" of "heavily subsidized" upgrading when it was the other way round, HDB lessees made to subsidize the upgrading work which is supposed to be the Land Owner's aka HDB's obligations?

9) Fundamentally, there are GREAT differences between the 99 Year leasehold between a Private Properties vs HDB flats.

Goh Meng Seng

TOTD: PAP's Plan From First World to Third World

Thought of the Day - PAP's Plan From First World to Third World

There is a massive outcry over PM Lee's National Day Rally over his "advice" of adjustment to the rising cost of living.

The best weapon against rising cost of living is to increase our salaries. However, despite of PAP's boast about higher GDP growth, the salaries of Singaporeans have hardly catch up with the inflationary pressure. That's the crux of the matter.

Instead of solving the problem of inadequate rise in income, or for many people, a regression of income due to underemployment and job mismatch, PM Lee and his ministers tried to downgrade our living standards from First World to Third World!

We would expect the citizens to progress in life quality as the nation progress from underdeveloped country to developed country status. But what PAP is trying to do is to persuade Singaporeans to live with Third World Standard of living while continuing to give them TOP WORLD Class Million dollar annual salaries!

The truth is, while our GDP growth might have reached "First World Per Capital Income level" but in reality, Singaporeans' purchasing powers had in fact deteriorated over the years due to constant increase in prices. The artificially boosted GDP growth did not benefit Singaporeans much but in reality, it is due to the influx of cheaper foreign labour and more MNCs parking and registering their profits here in Singapore without creating substantial well paid jobs for Singaporeans.

Thus, it is really laughable for a self serving ruling party which hold the country at ransom to demand the highest salaries paid in the world for political appointments to try and lecture Singaporeans to cut down on "expectation" and "spending" by lowering quality of life!

Giving irrelevant "5 cents 10 cents tips" of "saving money" by going to hawker centres, using public Wifi to save data usage and such, which didn't really contribute to much savings at all for a household! Lamenting on how people are owning airconditioners and handphones as the source of higher cost of living without addressing the REAL cause of high cost due to the horrendous increases in tax on water, electric tariffs and eventually GST!

Most importantly, it is really unconvincing at all to lecture Singaporeans on cutting cost of living via lowering quality of life when PAP government seems to go into a spending spree in all sorts of infrastructures from HSR, Terminal 5 (yeah, we don't even know how expensive it is going to be!) and $16 million thrown into an "international party" between two leaders which yield no substantial results! Well, $16 Million could buy us a few years supply of water from Malaysia!

It is really sickening to me and reminds me about Animal Farm. The Pigs will live a luxurious lifestyle while constantly lecture the other animals to live a frugal life, over-worked till death.

If this is the First World Government Singaporeans wanted, then they really deserve the Third World quality of Life PAP wanted them to live... yeah, no handphones, no aircon, lowest quality milk powder for your baby, eat at hawker centres not restaurants (while they could play golf and drive most expensive cars in the world), work, live and sleep in humid and hot weather... no progress in life but only work to give the Ministers Top World Pay and money to splash on expensive projects of Grandiosity to glorify themselves as "great leaders".

Yes, our forefathers had worked hard to bring Singapore from Third World to First World country, but only ended up to justify the TOP pay for PAP Ministers and now, they will bring us back from First World to Third World, while maintaining their TOP salaries in the world.

Singaporeans, are you happy now?

Goh Meng Seng

Unrealistic Expectations from PAP or Singaporeans?

The following is from a FB friend ...

What people think of LHL. Honestly speaking, this man had gone cuckoo.

*An excellent piece written by Gerard Ong*_
~~~~~~
Elgin Toh, The Straits Times Deputy Political Editor said in his commentary on Aug 20, our PM has turned into one of those savvy financial advisers who dispense valuable tips on how to save money on daily expenses at his Rally speech on 19 Aug.

These tips included, being more mindful of water and electricity usage, watching data usage, tapping wireless@SG when available, not using expensive brands in your household and looking for economical options at new hawker centres.

Really Elgin? Our PM a savvy financial advisor? Then my late grandma who brought me up must have been an A grade financial advisor as well. She constantly lectured me why I should not waste electricity & water, switch on appliances unnecessarily, buy branded stuff and expensive food. I think she only had a primary school education before the war.

I remember as a young officer in the army some of my cohort used to nick name some of our senior commanders as “five & ten cents” officers because they emphasised on the small stuff instead of focusing on the big picture which everyone knew was more important and relevant.

I hope our PM reads the yearly stats on the world’s most expensive cities and realises that Singapore has been named the most expensive city in the world for the past few years.

Perhaps a man of his status may not realise it as like Tun Mahathir who said recently that when he was PM he did not need much money. This was because where ever he went things were paid by organisations or people around him. So he does not understand why people (he was jibing UMNO ministers) need so much money.

I wonder if our PM has stepped into an NTUC FairPrice supermarket to compare prices of nonbranded household goods or a wet market to know prices of meat, poultry and fish.

The prices are high not because the sellers are profiteering but because everything in Singapore is highly priced or taxed which tinkles down and wallops the consumer. If the price of vehicles, fuel and rent are high, the prices of deliverable goods go up in price. You don’t need to be an economics graduate to know that.

In 1978, I bought a good second-hand car for S$1,500. My five room Normanton Park apartment cost S$37,000 and came with a swimming pool and tennis courts. Today a five-room flat in far flung Punggol cost S$400,000 and you will have to wait two to four years for it.

These prices do not reflect the interest payments which bring up the overall price of the flat considerably. I am not even talking of resale flats as prices of such apartments are insane when you compare them with property prices in fully developed countries.

There will be people who will compare us with Hong Kong and say we are better off. Well they could compare us with a village in the far north of Thailand and say we are better off as we have electricity and piped-in gas. Such comparisons are futile as we are talking about our cost of living and how it affects the middle-income earners and those living on their wits end in Singapore.

It is the big-ticket prices in Singapore that have raised the cost of living for all of us. Why are houses and flats so expensive. It is primarily because land sales have been priced high and developers upping their prices and profits.

Let us not forget with every property sales transaction, a tax is levied which brings up the cost of the purchase. Primarily the major portion of our income goes into paying of mortgages.

Why are goods so expensive? You don’t need a finance degree to figure it out. High cost of property + high rentals + high cost of vehicles and taxes + high costs of services + salaries (with CPF) + worker levies = high overall cost

At the end of the day, the rich and high performing ministers and bureaucrats with their humongous salaries will not feel the pinch when we talk about the high cost of living in Singapore.

Unless you are Edwin Tong who told Goh Chok Tong that if he took up a post as a Minister of State, he may not be able to take care of his family, mother and father-in-law with his $500k yearly salary!

TOTD: STOP Living in Self Denial!

Thought of the Day - STOP living in self denial!

I read quite a number of remarks, articles and comments over VERS and felt pretty amused and sad.

People are still living in self denial of the massive scam of asset enhancement scheme initiated by PAP.

People should STOP thinking that PAP is coming to your rescue and giving you great money with VERS!

PAP has screwed up badly over the Assets Enhancement Scam and there is no way out of it without great pain to many Singaporeans. Please do not live in self denial.

VERS is not about giving a great deal to Singaporeans but an attempt to avert a sudden supply and demand shock to the HOUSING market when a massive over 200k flats come into expiry within a few years.

Sink that in and stop hoping for PAP to come to your rescue from a real rapid depreciation of your HDB flat.

Goh Meng Seng

TOTD: Credits Due

Thought of the Day - Credits Due

Well, I have to give due credits to the Minister of National Development for the willingness to consider my comprehensive solutions to the HDB-CPF mess and adapted some of the important policy options stated in my proposal.

Although he didn't give me due credits for my inputs for the obvious reasons, but still, I think he is sincere in solving the big mess of HDB instead of living in self denial like his predecessors, especially MBT.

For the good of our Nation's future, we need people like him who is willing to look at problems and situations objectively and apply or adapt good policy options, regardless of whether it comes from the opposition camp or not.

But one word of caution to him, my solutions provided must be looked at in totality and not in selective adoption else he will risk having incoherence in his policies.

I was quite reluctant to write that article to provide my policy options at first because these policy views are the accumulation of more than 20 years of in-depth study and understanding the HDB issues in and out, through and through.

But a friend of mine, who is helping the government in crafting housing development policies, had urged me to contribute, write, publish and share my views, for the benefits of our nation. He said the committee will take serious consideration of any good proposals and views.

After much considerations, I decided to write. The reason is simple, since Lawrance Wong has the moral courage to openly declare and correct misperception of public on HDB by declaring your HDB flat will have zero value when the 99 year lease expired, I believe that he is sincere in his approach, unlike MBT who would continue to misled Singaporeans on "assets enhancement".

I know my article was passed around the members involved in the policy committee

I would rebut PAP or anyone who claims we don't provide sensible and credible policy views or options in future. We may not earn $1 million, but we are no less talented than anyone.

Goh Meng Seng