HDB out of the blue visit
On 8th July 2022, some AMK SERS residents spotted some staffs from HDB going around knocking on doors in the 562 -565 flats.
Words started spreading that they were handing out new revised Financial Estimates to residents explaining that there will be no top up if residents accept the 50-yr lease replacement flat.
Looks like HDB is trying its best to salvage the AMK SERS incident that had became the talk of the town due to its poor handling on 7th April 2022.
As the 11th July 2022 Straits Time article had written – “the government was caught off guard and the two options were put together as a response to the uproar at Ang Mo Kio.”
Until today, there were also no clear explanation as to why these 4 blocks of flats were chosen in the unlucky SERS exercise. The scripted response from HDB about redevelopment this plot of land doesn’t cut with any of the affected residents. Most residents including myself viewed the entire episode as hungry land grabbing by HDB so that they can sell the land to private developers to build condominiums and boast about 5-minute walk to Tavistock MRT.
Don’t believe? Just look at Ang Mo Kio Ave 2. The new AMO Residence condominium was built on the site where it used to have HDB flats.
The rush to hand delivered the new Financial Estimate over an unannounced Friday was also quite unusual for HDB. At first we were surprised by the SERS announcement, then came the shocking news of $100K top up. And now rushing to feed us the 50-year lease option? Looks like a lot of pressuring from the top.
A few of my old neighbours asked me whether the 50-years lease was of any good when we bumped into each other. I explained to them that if they already in their 70s and 80s, the 50-years lease does seems to be a good option as they don’t have to worry about the massive top up.
But for majority of the families with children, the thinking had always been parent bought a HDB, started to raise kids, passed down the house to the kids. And these are the residents that are particularly upset with the 50-years lease.
Some people might argue even without SERS, we will still have to deal with lease decay 50 years down the road. While it sounds true, what critic forgotten was the fact that some residents like myself already fully paid for the home. And I do not have to worry about financing for another home down the roads. And my children may eventually either buy a HDB on their own or chose to live their remaining lives overseas. The flat will go back to HDB with our passing.
Nearly fooled
HDB likes to use words such as similar flat type. When I first received my SERS letter, I was tricked into thinking that I will be getting another 4 room HDB unit of the same size. But when looking at the estimated financial estimates from HDB, there were some tiny characters embedded within larger fonts which indicated it was actually a smaller 4 room unit. Nice job HDB.
I guessed many others also realised that and told HDB off for trying to push a fast one on all of us.
After HDB’s ‘wrong choice of words’ were called out, the new 50-years lease now comes with the wording of “similar size”.
