The Housing and Urban Development Company scheme (HUDC) in Singapore has experienced privatization for more than 40 years. It has now come to an end, where Braddell View was converted into a private estate. This incident took place on 17th March, which ended the house programme established back in 1974.
Braddell View, which consisted of 918 different flats and two shops, can be considered as the biggest one out of all the HUDC states. It also became the last one to be privatised. The Braddell View was introduced to the people in need by HUDC during the 1970s. It continued to provide shelter for middle income families during 1970s and well as in 1980s.
The first announcement about the privatization of HUDC estates was announced back in 1995. The government of Singapore took this initiative with the objective of catering all the increasing aspirations of people who live in Singapore. In fact, the people who live in Singapore wish to have their own private houses. This pressurized the government to launch a privatization program. It has successfully been completed along with the privatization of HUDC. Along with privatization, flat owners would be provided with enhanced control over maintenance and management of the estate as well. This can deliver an excellent benefit to the people at the end of the day. When a HUDC is privatised, they are eligible for collective sales and can be sold to private developer as well, one good example will be the Shunfu Ville Estate (Upcoming Shunfu Condo) which was sold to Qing Jian Realty.
As per the official announcement made by HDB after the privatization of Braddell View, individual owners who work for the estate will now be able to become the owners of their strata units. In addition, they will get the opportunity to become the owners of the common property through becoming tenants in common.
It took some time than expected for the privatization of Braddell View. That’s mainly because it took longer than expected for Braddell View to get the support of flat owners to move ahead with privatization. Previously, it was able to obtain a majority vote of 75% of the flat owners to move ahead with privatization. However, the objections caused by other people dragged the initiative.
The things have now changed and finally Braddell View was privatised. Now it is being managed by the Management Corporation Starta Title, which is well-known among people as MCST. The rights to manage and maintain Braddell View was provided to them through the Land Titles Act. Moreover, the existing management committee of it assumes the entire role of the council of Management Corporation.
Individual owners of Braddell View will be able to retain the ownership of their respective starts units. In addition they can have the ownership of common property as mentioned earlier. As per the records of HBD, 7,731 dwelling units have been privatized as of now. This marks the closure of the initiative taken by Singapore government in order to privatize the HUDC states.
HUDC is the forerunner to Executive Condo, below are some ECs that have already launched or will be launching soon.
