Yahoo Finance 
Non-citizen quota not applicable to renting out HDB bedrooms as owners stay with their tenants: MND
HDB owners who stay together with their tenants have "some effect in reducing any sense of foreigner concentration" in Singapore HDB estates, said MND.
SINGAPORE — Owners of Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats who rent out bedrooms and continue to stay in the flat together with their tenants are not subject to the non-citizen quota because they have "some effect in reducing any sense of foreigner concentration" in HDB estates, said the Ministry of National Development (MND).
The ministry said this in a written reply to Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, who had asked the Minister for National Development to explain the rationale for not applying the non-citizen quota for HDB neighbourhoods and blocks to the renting out of bedrooms.
"Unlike whole flat rentals, owners renting out bedrooms continue to stay in their flats together with their tenants... Most of these owners are retirees and lower-income households who rely on rental collections to supplement their household income," said the ministry.
Also read: HDB Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme (PPHS): Number of flats available to double by 2025
According to the MND, the non-citizen quota is aimed at preventing the formation of foreigner enclaves in HDB estates and maintaining the Singaporean character in HDB heartlands. Currently, the quota does not apply to the rental of bedrooms in HDB flats.
However, the quota is enforced when it comes to purchasing a flat or when the whole flat is rented out. Applications to rent out the whole flat to one or more non-Malaysian or non-citizen tenants are subject to the block quota of 11 per cent and the neighbourhood quota of eight per cent.
The MND revealed that as of December 2023, there were about 223,000 registered tenants in the 110,000 HDB flats that remain occupied by their owners but have bedrooms rented out. Of these registered tenants, three per cent are Singaporeans, 56 per cent are Malaysians, and the remaining 41 per cent are of other nationalities.
Complaints of nuisance against HDB flat tenants
Separately, MND revealed that over the past five years, the HDB received, on average, about 180 instances of feedback per year regarding the nuisance caused by tenants renting HDB flats or bedrooms.
This constitutes about 1.5 per cent of the total volume of feedback on nuisance by neighbours, the ministry said. It added that the HDB does not track the proportion of feedback involving only foreign tenants.
The written reply was in response to a Parliamentary question by Member of Parliament Dennis Tan, who asked for, among others, the average number of complaints of nuisance against tenants of neighbouring units in HDB estates for each of the last five years; and of those, the average number which involves foreign tenants.
The ministry reminded HDB flat owners that they are required to seek HDB's approval prior to renting out their flats or bedrooms and must comply with the terms and conditions, which include the requirement to conduct regular checks on their tenants to ensure that tenants do not cause a nuisance to neighbours.
The rental approval may be terminated by HDB if flat owners fail to adhere to any of the terms and conditions.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter.
