On Wednesday, another flat - a maisonette - was found to have been illegally housing 20 people when HDB officers paid a "surprise" routine inspection visit to it. Seventeen of the tenants were maids. The owner of the maisonette had gone beyond the limit of nine sub-tenants and could lose his flat.
From January 2008 to December last year, HDB took enforcement action against 56 flat owners - from all flat types - who sub-letted their units without approval.
Some flat owners lock up one bedroom, and sub-let the rest of the flat without staying in the unit. The penalties for these cases ranged from fines of $1,000 to $21,000 to the repossession of the flats.
HDB also set up a hotline last month to receive tip-offs. It has received more than 60 calls in three weeks, and is investigating the cases. Mr Teo Chye Hwa, head of HDB's Bukit Batok Branch Office said that once a call is received, the board will first check if the owner is allowed to sub-let the whole flat.
"Once that is verified, we will conduct further investigation to gather more evidence of illegal sub-letting of the flats," he said.
HDB will continue to step up routine checks to weed out unauthorised sub-letting.
- TODAY, 9 April 2010
