Public housing applicant complains that his mother used his identity to buy a green home and loses going upstairs

Subsidized sale flats such as HOS and GSH have been "hard to find" for many years.

The Office of The Ombudsman received a complaint alleging that a PRH applicant claimed that his identity was misappropriated by an elderly mother in order to qualify for the “Family with the Elderly Scheme” and successfully won the lottery to buy a green subsidized housing unit. As a result, he was disqualified from applying for public housing. He believed that when his mother signed the sale and purchase agreement, the HD did not verify the identity of the occupant with him, and there was no signature of the complainant on the declaration form for withdrawing from the application for public housing. The complainant withdrew from the Green Home Ownership Scheme and resumed his PRH application eligibility.

The Ombudsman Office found the complaint substantiated and criticized the Housing Department for failing to arrange for the complainant to sign the GSH application statement, failing to ensure that the applicant would live with his mother, which violated the purpose of the plan and caused obvious injustice, and his mother was not qualified to represent the complainant Withdrawing the application for public housing, we urge the Housing Department to review the relevant procedures, seek legal advice, and repeatedly judge the legality and validity of the sale and purchase agreement for the unit involved.

▼Check out this new HOS ▼

+5

The victim had been living separately from his mother, claiming that he did not know that the other party used his own name to buy a green house together

According to the investigation report of the Office of the Ombudsman, the victim and her mother originally shared a rental housing estate unit of the Housing Society. The mother was the head of the household and the victim was a registered resident, but the relationship between the two was not good. The victim had moved out more than 10 years ago.

The victim applied to the Housing Department for public housing again in May of the previous year. However, 5 months later, the Housing Department wrote to the victim stating that her mother had used the two’s names to purchase the property through the “Family with Elderly Scheme” in the “Green Home Ownership Scheme 2019”. One unit, so the owner's PRH application must be cancelled.

The victim then explained to the Housing Department that he had no intention of buying the GSH flat in question and that he had no knowledge of the transaction. However, the Housing Department refused to accept his complaint, and even stated that unless the victim reported to the police or his mother "solicited", it would not let him go. He withdraws from the Green Home Ownership Scheme, or restores his eligibility for public housing.

Office of the Ombudsman.

(file picture)

The owner complained to the Office of The Ombudsman in April last year that he was dissatisfied with the fact that the Housing Department did not verify his wishes when approving his mother's application to purchase a flat, and asked him to call the police or his mother's "rejection" before agreeing to let him withdraw from the "GSH 2019" He was also embarrassed to criticize the unreasonable application for the application.

After the Office of the Application Commissioner intervened in the investigation, it was revealed that the staff of the estate office who accepted the application of the complainant's mother would only check the application form and the tenant's information on the tenancy agreement, including:

1. Whether the household is eligible for the application

2. Whether all household members listed in the tenancy agreement are filled in the application form

3. Whether the information of the household members filled in is consistent with the household file records

4. Whether the signature of the head of the household on the application form is the same as that on the tenancy agreement consistent

The HD retorted that the complainant and his mother signed the GSH application form together. Even if the complainant did not sign any supplementary declaration, the relevant provisions were still valid.

(file picture)

The verified information only involves the signature of the head of the household, resulting in a loophole in the application for family members to be misappropriated.

The Housing Department retorted that since the tenancy agreements of public housing and rental housing estates are signed by the tenants and the HA/HS, the tenants should ensure that the information on the application form is accurate, and they should also promise to return the current unit after the transaction is completed. Therefore, the Housing Department mainly checks whether the signature of the householder on the application form is consistent with the signature on the lease agreement.

Only the complainant's mother is required to attend the flat selection, sign the sale and purchase agreement and fill in the declaration form

The Housing Department also mentioned that since the applicant is the complainant's mother, and the person over the age of 60 who participated in the "Family with Elderly Scheme" is also his mother, in the absence of joint owners, only the complainant's mother Must attend flat selection, sign sale and purchase agreement and statement on July 14, 2020, emphasizing that the existing arrangement is in line with the established sales arrangement, and it can also avoid inconvenience to other family members who do not intend to become owners, but no response affects other family members eligibility for public housing.

The complainant did not sign the confirmation as a family member

The Ombudsman Office criticized that the declaration of a family with an elderly scheme requires family members participating in the scheme to confirm that they must live with the elderly relatives participating in the scheme after purchasing a green housing unit through the scheme. However, in this case, the Housing Department only asked for a complaint The mother signed the relevant declaration as an elderly relative, but did not require the complainant to sign the confirmation as a family member, pointing out that the practice failed to achieve the purpose of the declaration and was a loophole in the relevant plan; The mother lives with the unit involved, which is violating the original intention of the "Family with Elderly Program".

Knowing that the complainant was applying for public housing, but did not arrange to sign the declaration

In addition, the Housing Department has long been aware of the complainant's application for public housing, but did not arrange for him to sign the declaration form. He directly reprimanded that "the practice is incomprehensible", stressing that the GSH applicant has no right to abandon the application for public housing on behalf of his family members, and urged the Housing Department to There is a need to review the current arrangements for signing declarations to ensure the legitimacy and validity of the declarations.

The Ombudsman Chiu Wai-yin made two recommendations to the Housing Department:

1. In view of the loopholes revealed in this case, seek legal advice to understand the legality and validity of the relevant declaration and the signed sales and purchase agreement.

2. Review the current problem of not arranging for family members to sign the declaration, so as to consider improving the relevant administrative procedures, Ensuring that the Declaration of Families with the Elderly Scheme and the declaration of abandonment of the PRH application are true to their name

▼Green Residences Green House and Butterfly Garden▼

+2

HD: Impossible to meet all applicants and their family members

The Housing Department countered that, after seeking legal advice, it believed that the complainant and his mother signed the GSH application form together. Even if the complainant did not sign any supplementary declaration, the relevant provisions were still valid, stressing that the applicant was required to sign the sale and purchase agreement. Sign the declaration, only to "reconfirm the relevant regulations".

The HD continued that the key in this case was not whether the complainant signed the declaration, but whether the signature belonged to the complainant himself. Therefore, unless a notary public witnesses the signature, or the HD meets all the applicants and their family members, it cannot To prevent cases from recurring, but there are hundreds of thousands of HOS and GSH applications in total, the relevant procedures are impractical and will cause inconvenience to the applicants, so we can only further investigate and follow up on this case.

However, the Ombudsman reiterated that the HD does need to review the administrative procedures for signing the declaration form, and when the complainant repeatedly told the HD that he had not participated in the GSH application, it indicated that the process of applying and signing the sale and purchase agreement may involve inconsistencies. However, the HD did not go further into the incident, and its approach was not comprehensive and reliable.

After careful consideration of the HD's response, The Ombudsman Chiu Wai-yin ruled that the complaint was substantiated.

In the first half of the year, 250 public housing estates were encircled and forced to inspect 10% of the households who did not answer the door. Councillors questioned that the flat was left empty. The committee can allocate about 27,600 public housing units this year. The number is 11% less than last year. According to the Housing Department, 26% of the applicants were selected for the third time. The building has accepted the allocation of 2,000 express public housing units to launch HOS 2022 next month | The result of the ballot is not as expected?

Inventory of new projects in the future