From Feb 01, 2010, flat owners who sub-let rooms in their HDB flats will have to register with HDB within 7 days of doing so. They are also required to notify HDB when they renew or terminate the sub-letting of rooms, and when there are changes to their sub-tenants’ particulars, we assume within 7 days as well.

The new requirement will support the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)’s on-going efforts to eradicate loan-sharking activities, and to better protect HDB residents. Currently, some people use their old addresses to borrow from loan-sharks while they rent a room in another HDB flat. As they have moved their place of residence without updating addresses in their NRICs, this resulted in the new flat occupiers being harassed by the loan-sharks while the borrowers are untraceable.

Why are we mentioning it here, because non-compliance may affect your resale in the future. Penalty is $3,000(per incident, our guess). HDB may compulsorily acquire flat for repeat offender.

Information to be furnished:
a) Sub-letting commencement date
b) Sub-letting expiry date
c) No. of rooms sublet
d) Rental per month
e) Name of sub-tenants
f) Household structure of sub-tenant (family or individual)
g) UIN/FIN of sub-tenant
h) Nationality of sub-tenant
i) Citizenship of sub-tenant
j) Ethnicity of sub-tenant
k) Work pass of sub-tenant (e.g work permit, employment pass)
l) Sector which subtenant works in (service, construction, manufacturing etc)
m) Reasons for subletting

A lot of information required. Official press release titled “Flat Owners to Register Subletting of Rooms with HDB”. You can safely replace the 3 words “Subletting of Rooms” with “Subletting of entire Flat without prior Approval”. Why? Monthly rental is different between rooms rental and entire flat rental disguised as rooms rental. The availability of online registration speeds up the analysis of information furnished. More discoveries can be expected. If owners are tempted to rent out their flat without prior approval under the guise of rooms rental, don’t do it. Irresponsible and over-zealous agents may be persuasive, don’t give in. Ultimately owners will be held accountable.

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