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Nearly 60 Hong Kong public sector households have been found to own private flats in the wake of a get-tough policy designed to crack down on abuse of the system.
Permanent Secretary for Housing Rosanna Law Shuk-pui said the 59 offenders were caught after officials carried out property checks on 57,000 people in 25,000 households in a collaboration with the Land Registry. The new system was introduced last month.
An investigation showed four of the cases had been declared bankrupt, but because of outdated records they were mistakenly included in the list.
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The authorities are examining the remaining 55 cases.
Law, also director of housing, said some of them might involve different underlying reasons, such as the need to update property rights because of legal changes.
She emphasised authorities would not make immediate requests for these families to surrender their public housing flats, but reminded tenants that the deadline for the first batch of declarations was at the end of the month.
“In certain discretionary circumstances, such as genuine health issues requiring hospitalisation or legitimate official business trips, we will handle these situations with compassion,” Law said.
“However, deliberate failure to submit declaration forms or intentional concealment will result in the immediate termination of the lease agreement, which is the most severe action we can take.”
She added if a tenant failed to submit the form within two months, doubts might arise about whether the property was occupied or not, a key indicator of suspected public housing abuse.
Hong Kong crackdown has to make it clear public housing is for needy
Almost 75,000 declaration forms had been collected by Tuesday, a recovery rate of 85 per cent.
The Housing Authority said it had also had reports that some public housing tenants owned property or shops in mainland China.
A case involving false declaration was uncovered after liaison with mainland authorities and a public housing flat was retrieved on October 31.
Law added the banking and insurance sector had provided information to the authorities in connection with public housing tenants who might own overseas properties in other parts of the world.
But she declined to outline the next steps the authorities would take because of the involvement of law enforcement.
Law added reports from the public were an effective way to combat the abuse of public housing and that the authorities were considering incentives to encourage people to help uncover abuse.
‘Raise age limit for Hong Kong public housing tenants free from declaring assets’
Demands for tougher enforcement for well-off tenants came after Kwong Kau, 65, the former father-in-law of murdered model Abby Choi Tin-fung, was found earlier this year to have a luxury home, months before he bought a subsidised flat.
Kwong, 65, who has been charged with Choi’s murder along with his two sons, Alex Kwong Kong-chi, Choi’s ex-husband, and Anthony Kwong Kong-kit, had a 1,820 sq ft HK$73 million (US$9.4 million) flat in the exclusive Kadoorie Hill area of Ho Man Tin in his name in 2019.
But he was also listed as the owner of a 291 sq ft subsidised flat at Sheung Man Court in Kwai Chung less than a year later.
People who had lived in public housing for less than 10 years were asked to submit declaration forms every two years under the new rules.
About 88,000 public housing tenants were asked to declare their residential situation and whether they also owned properties in the first phase of the new policy.
The regulations earlier only applied to tenants who had lived in public housing flats for more than 10 years.
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