When you make that big decision to re-sell your HDB flat, why not do it yourself? By doing so you avoid paying an agent’s expensive commissions and fees and get more out of the sale of your flat. You will also be able to interact and negotiate with the buyer face-to-face and choose how to market your flat.
Things to Consider Before Selling Your HDB Flat
1. Have you fulfilled your flat’s Minimum Occupancy Period?
Before you start selling, make sure you have fulfilled the Minimum Occupancy Period (MOP) for your flat. According to HDB, the MOP is the period of time you are required to physically occupy your flat before you can sell it on the open market.
The MOP is calculated from the date you collected the keys to your flat.
Generally, flats purchased from HDB, or resale flats bought from the open market with the CPF housing grant, will have a MOP of five years. As the MOP duration may vary depending on how you purchased your flat, flat type, and the date of flat application, refer to HDB’s website to check the MOP duration for your specific flat.
Take note that the MOP excludes:
- Any period when you do not occupy the flat (e.g. when the whole flat is rented out); and
- Any period where there has been an infringement of the flat lease.
2. Selling part of your HDB flat lease instead of the entire flat
If you are from an elderly household where all the owners are aged 65 or older and live in a four-room or smaller flat, you can consider applying for HDB’s Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS) instead of selling your flat.
Under this scheme, you can sell part of your flat’s lease to HDB and choose to retain the lease based on the age of the youngest owner.
The proceeds from selling part of your flat’s lease will be used to top up your CPF Retirement Account (RA). You can then use your CPF RA savings to purchase a CPF LIFE plan which will provide you a monthly income for life. This will allow you to receive an income from your flat while continuing to live in it through your retirement years.
You can find more details on the LBS, such as the eligibility conditions and application procedures, on HDB’s website.
Step-by-Step Process of Re-selling Your HDB Flat
All resale applications are processed using the HDB Resale Portal. You may log into this Portal using your SingPass to manage your resale online.
The steps to re-selling your flat are:
- Register the Intent to Sell on the HDB Resale Portal and use the HDB-prescribed Option to Purchase (OTP) to enter into a contract with potential buyers;
- Submission of your resale application on the HDB Resale Portal;
- Endorsement of resale documents (acknowledge the documents on the HDB Resale portal) ;
- Payment of resale fees;
- Receive approval of resale application; and
- Attend the Resale Completion appointment.
The entire process from the acceptance of the resale application (step 2) to completion (step 6) takes about eight weeks.
Hiring a Lawyer to Assist with the Transaction
Here is how you can get a lawyer to help in the legal aspects of your re-sale.
1. Hiring an HDB lawyer
If you choose to appoint HDB to act for you in the conveyancing, the legal fees will be as stated in the First Schedule of the Housing and Development (Conveyancing) Rules 2002.
The scale of legal fees for a resale of an HDB flat is as follows:
First $30,000 | 13.5¢ per $100 or part thereof |
Next $30,000 | 10.8¢ per $100 or part thereof |
Thereafter | 9.0¢ per $100 or part thereof |
Note: The minimum fee is $20. |
2. Hiring a private lawyer
You can also hire a private conveyancing lawyer to act on your behalf.
Having a private lawyer assist you from an early stage will help you make sure all the legal aspects of your resale is in order and make the process less daunting.
They can advise you on your rights and liabilities, and help you gain a better understanding of your position. Should problems arise, they will be able to advise you on the appropriate actions to take, helping you to protect your interests.
While an HDB lawyer can conduct the conveyancing for you, they may not be able to guide you in the early process of re-selling your flat.
If you hire a private lawyer at the conveyancing stage, you will need to produce a letter from your solicitor to confirm that they are acting for you in the conveyancing of the resale transaction when you submit your resale application to HDB.
You can also engage a private lawyer at the contractual stage (when you are preparing to grant an OTP to your buyers). To do this, you will need to complete the Authorisation Form in the OTP.
Listed below are more details on how you can sell your HDB without engaging an agent: