Public Property

All this time we were renting out our HDB flat, I always thought that we were the "landlords" and our tenants were the "leasees".

When I applied online for HDB's approval to rent out my flat, I had a big realisation. In legally correct terminologies, we, the people who "purchased" the flat for several hundred thousand dollars, are referred to as the "leasees". We don't even qualify to be called "owners" or "landlords". We are in fact the "tenants" in the property and our tenants "sub-tenants" in what is called, in technical terms, "sub-letting" our flat.

All this while I was under the illusion that I owned a property in Singapore and who can blame me, with terms like "home ownerships schemes" being used frequently by the media and ministers. I felt misled, even slightly cheated, but really I mustn't forget that all HDB flats are built on land on a 99 year lease from the Singapore government. The land will always belong to the state and instead of owning it permanently, what we are really buying and paying for is the permission to reside in the dwelling for a maximum of 99 years.

Well, 99 years is a long time and you can always sell the flat to someone else along the way, hopefully at a little profit. Still, this doesn't make me feel any better. The knowledge that many people worked so hard to finance something that they cannot call their own and at the end of the day is still "public property" is unsettling. Something as fundamental as the roof over your head. So what happens when the 99 years is up? If your future generation inherits this flat from you, what will they get at the end? Compensation? Resettlement?

Before that, the only thing you really OWN is the mortgage you took to purchase this leasehold property.