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The Housing Department is proposing four new measures in dealing with rent arrears in public rental housing (PRH).
Under the proposed new measures, tenancies held by habitual late rent payers who have been paying their rents in arrears consecutively for 3 months will be terminated, instead of four months. This will take effect in October 2005.
Moreover, tenants leaving PRH with rent default records will have to clear all outstanding rent arrears on their return to PRH.
Other proposals include rent allowance for Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) households paid directly to the Housing Department by the Social Welfare Department (SWD) and promoting rent payment by autopay, which is a more convenient mode of rent payment for tenants. Lucky draws will be arranged for tenants joining autopay.
The Deputy Director of Housing (Estate Management), Mr. Lau Kai-hung, said that an analysis of the rent arrears position early this year revealed that the rent arrears for CSSA households was 6.5 per cent compared with 3.7 per cent for non-CSSA households.
Mr. Lau stressed that the problem of rent arrears was not entirely related to affordability of tenants as about 8,900 households out of the 27,190 households in rent arrears were CSSA recipients whose rents were fully covered by the rent allowance.
These proposed measures will be discussed by members of the Housing Authority's Subsidized Housing Committee at a meeting next Thursday (29 September, 2005).
Mr. Lau noted that tenants who encountered financial hardship could apply for transfer to a flat with a lower rent to reduce their rental expenditure or applied for Rent Assistance to obtain a 50 per cent rent reduction when the rental expenditure took up more than 25 per cent of their income or their income was below 50 per cent of the Waiting List limit.
"Full implementation of these new measures is expected to improve the rent arrears situation substantially," he added.
Ends/Friday, September 23, 2005
Issued at HKT 17:35
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