While many people have had praises to sing about HDB giving them a new flat, we had our own fair shares of pain when it came to dealing with our HDB officer in charge of our application (who I will refer to as Miss A in this post). In this two part series post, we intend to share with you our difficulty with dealing with Miss A over the past 2 years and what we learnt from it.
Jan 2021: Both me and my partner were invited down to select a flat after having successfully in our balloting. We both knew that we will definitely be able to get a flat as our queue number was within the flats in supply. Both of us were still in uni at that point in time but boy was on a scholarship and was receiving full salary with CPF contributions while completing his bachelors, he was asked to present all income related documents. When we enquired, the HDB sales officer told us that we would be eligible for the Enhanced Housing Grant (EHG) as 🙋🏻♂️ had been receiving salary for more than 12 months and the estimated grant given to us would have been approximately 60k.
Jan 2022: After 1 year, we were still not contacted by HDB to make our downpayment and thought that there might have been something wrong with our application. We contacted Miss A but were being told that our application is still in process. She assured us that the flat we selected would still be ours and that they just required more time to process the paperwork for our application.
April 2022: Miss A contacted us saying that we did not qualify for the EHG as 🙋🏻♂️ is still considered a full time student and NOT gainfully employed though he has been receiving salary from his sponsoring organization. Both of us got a shock when we first saw this and tried calling in to clarify the matter but to no avail. At this point in time, our Housing Loan Eligibility (HLE) was being approved using the same set of income documents which we were extremely confused by. We would attempt to call our Miss A at least 2-3 times a day and email her once a week but there would simply be no response or even if there was, it would be an automated one.
June 2022: Miss A finally responded to our emails re-stating what she has stated in her email to us in April 2022 – without answering any of our questions with regards to our rejection for EHG. Once again, we tried writing directly to her and submitting a form on the HDB website but there would simply be no response for weeks.
July 2022: After weeks of writing in, Miss A finally answered some of our questions which we had originally posed to her in April 2022 saying that because 🙋🏻♂️ has no work clause with his organization and not doing any meaningful work for them while studying, HDB would categorize him as a full time student and not recognise his salary. When we brought up the point on our HLE being approved, Miss A simply side-stepped the question.
August 2022: After close to 6 months of pestering Miss A, she finally gave us a call. Over the phone, we expressed our displeasure about HDB going back against their word and the inconsistency in income assessment. Even over the phone, she quickly changed the topic and presented to us 2 options – file for an appeal for EHG or apply for the Deferred Income Assessment (DIA)
Late-Aug 2022: As a last resort, we decided to write into our MPs to help us appeal for our case. It is interesting to note that when our MP filed an appeal for us, a reply came back within 5 working days which is the fastest that HDB has ever gotten back to us. In the response to us, Miss A simply repeated the same points but did not address the issue on approval for HLE but rejection for EHG. After discussing, we both decided to not pursue the matter and file for the DIA.
Jan 2023: We got our appointment to sign our lease agreement and also make our downpayment which we did so after 2 years from selecting our flat. Usually, the downpayment would have to be made within 6-9 months of flat selection but ours took 2 years.
#HDB #downpayment #horror #EHG #income #salary #housingloan #HomeReno #hdbbto #bto
