Enhanced Lease Buyback Scheme
The Housing & Development Board (HDB) and Ministry of National Development (MND) have made changes to the Enhanced Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS) and the new revised scheme will be taking effect from next year, 1st April 2005.
The LBS was first introduced in the 2009 and further revised in the 2012. Under the Enhanced LBS, older HDB owners who have a lower income will be given an option to sell a portion of the lease of their flats back to HDB while they keep 30 years lease of the flats. The sales proceeds that the owners obtained from selling their lease will be used to top up their CPF retirement accounts. The flat owners will then get to utilize their CPF retirement savings via the CPF LIFE plan through monthly payouts. The HDB has emphasised that the elderly flat owners will not be left homeless due to the scheme, for flat owners who have outlived the 30 years lease, , lease extension or other proper arrangements can be made even for owners who do not have the ability to pay for the extension.
On the 3rd September 2014, HDB and MND announced the latest revisions made to the LBS and these include:
1.
- Flat owners who are 70 to 74 years old can opt for a 25- year lease;
- Flat owners who are 75 to 79 years old can opt for a 20-year lease;
- Flat owners who are above 80 years old can opt for a 15-year lease; and
- Flat owners can also opt for a longer lease period of up to a maximum of 35 year
2. Instead of a $3,000 monthly household income ceiling, the income ceiling for the flat owner’s household is raised to S$10,000 monthly.
3. If there is more than one flat owner owning the HDB flat, each of the owners will only need to top up their CPF retirement saving account to half of the minimum sum. They will be given the choice to keep the rest of their sales proceeds. However, this cash proceeds will be kept at a capped of S$100,000. The excess of the $100,000 will be used to top up into each of their own CPF retirement saving accounts.
4. Previously, LBS is solefy for flat owners who have 3-room or smaller flats, but with the new revisions made, 4-rooms flat owners can also opt for this scheme.
Below is a table from MND that illustrates the changes of the LBS made.
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