Up to 21,000 middle-income families are set to be disqualified from cheap government flat sales under proposed changes to income and asset limits.
The Housing Authority yesterday said it wanted to lower the income ceiling by 16 per cent and the asset limit by 16.7 per cent for its home ownership scheme from April 1, if the proposal is endorsed at a meeting on February 28. That means a family with monthly income exceeding $21,000 and assets in excess of $500,000 will not be allowed to buy authority flats, usually sold at 60 per cent of their market value.
The existing income limit is $25,000 and the asset limit $600,000 after it was last lowered in April. The authority estimated some 21,000 families, who would otherwise have been eligible, would be screened out under the revised limits.
The authority's home ownership committee chairman, Walter Chan Ka-lok, said after a briefing yesterday that deflation and falling bank rates and flat prices had been taken into account when determining the new limits.
According to the authority, the average price of a 435-square-foot unit up for private re-sale had dropped by 10 per cent to $1.2 million over the year to December.
But Virginia Ip Chiu-ping, of the People's Council on Housing Policy, said the proposal was intended 'to force people to buy private flats'. 'It is an ugly move to shore up the property market to please the developers,' Ms Ip said. Amid pressure from property tycoons, the Government last September announced a temporary ban on the sale of home ownership scheme flats for 10 months, pending a review of the 24-year-old scheme.
Even if the ban is lifted, the authority will not be allowed to sell more than 9,000 flats a year.
