Hong Kong authorities repossess 330 public rental flats, 40 errant tenants to be penalised
- Housing Authority says reclaimed flats came from the first batch of about 88,000 tenants who made declarations about whether they owned residential property
- Government also randomly inspected 30,000 households and 40 were found to have owned a property in the city without notifying authorities
Hong Kong authorities have repossessed about 330 public rental flats and will penalise another 40 tenants who failed to declare their property ownership, after stepping up efforts against the abuse of government housing resources last year.
The Housing Authority on Tuesday said public rental flats it reclaimed came from the first batch of about 88,000 tenants who were required to declare whether they owned any residential property in Hong Kong last October and November.
“As of mid-January, we have collected around 87,000 or 99.6 per cent of the declaration forms,” said Director of Housing Rosanna Law Shuk-pui, who is also the vice-chairwoman of the authority.
“Due to the new measures, around 330 flats have been returned or retrieved by us.”
Some of the reasons for taking rental homes back included tenants having purchased private homes and cases of migration, Law said.
The government also randomly inspected 30,000 households who made declarations. Forty were found to have owned a property in the city without notifying the authority, while another six had informed officers.
“We will follow up by issuing notices to vacate or by prosecuting,” Law added.
The government stepped up regulations against well-off public housing tenants last October after Kwong Kau, 66, the former father-in-law of murdered model Abby Choi Tin-fung, was found to have owned a luxury home while buying a subsidised flat.
Under the current rules, all tenants now have to go through income and asset declaration every two years. Previously, only those having lived there for a decade had to do so.
Those with private property have to give up their rental flats, while tenants convicted of knowingly giving false declarations can face a fine and imprisonment.
For the remaining 350 households who had yet to return their forms, Director Law said the authority was monitoring 250 of the cases, while the remaining 100 tenants remained uncontactable despite home visits and letters.
Under current regulations, households who fail to regularly reside at their public rental homes for over three months are considered to have abused housing resources.
“We are quite sure these 100 cases are problematic. If we want to take back these flats, we need to collect evidence,” Law said.
She added that the authority would check these tenants’ travel records and terminate their public rental leases, if they were found to have abused resources or intentionally refused to make their declarations.
Authorities will require the second batch of 250,000 tenants to make their declarations in April. These are households which have lived in public rental housing for more than 10 years, and whose income and assets have exceeded a certain limit.
“They may have a higher chance of owning properties … We stand a higher chance in reclaiming the flats,” Law said.
She also noted that the authority was studying whether to introduce a reporting mechanism, where residents could file suspected abuse cases and receive monetary rewards when flats were successfully reclaimed.
Law stopped short of revealing the reward amount but said she would take reference from the HK$3,000 (US$384) given out in the Good Citizen Award.
So far, the authority has taken back 2,200 public rental homes between last April and December due to abuse or lease contravention.
The figure included some of the 330 flats reclaimed through the declaration process, but the authority did not reveal the number.
The director also said property management companies employed at public housing estates had identified 22 separate cases of abusing public flats since the third quarter of 2023.
Firms that helped to catch errant tenants stood to get a higher monthly grading which could help them better secure future contracts, Law said earlier in January.
