Following is a question by Hon Wilson Or and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Mr Frank Chan Fan, in the Legislative Council today (June 6):
Question:
The Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) launched the Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) in 1998 for the tenants of selected public rental housing (PRH) estates to buy the flats in which they lived at a discounted price. Those tenants who purchased their flats within the first and second years of the offer of the TPS flats for sale, or those new tenants who purchased the TPS flats within the first and second years from commencement of their tenancies, may enjoy a full credit and a halved credit respectively. HA has not added any PRH estate to TPS after launching Phase 6B of TPS in August 2005. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) of the number of TPS flats in each of the existing 39 TPS estates which have been sold; whether it knows, among such flats, the respective numbers of those which are currently rented out and left vacant; if it has not compiled such statistics, whether it will do so;
(2) of the total number of TPS flats sold by HA in each of the past five years and, among such flats, the respective numbers of those which were sold at (i) full credit prices, (ii) halved credit prices and (iii) prices without credit; and
(3) of the current calculation methods for and other details of (i) full credit and (ii) halved credit?
Reply:
President,
(1) At present, there are 39 Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) estates under the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA). As at March 31, 2018, the number of flats sold in these estates was 138 550. For those TPS flats sold, HA does not have statistics on the number of flats that have been leased or vacated. We have no plan to conduct such survey.
(2) The number of TPS flats sold by HA at a price with "full special credit", "halved special credit" and "no special credit" in the past five years (2013-14 to 2017-18) are set out below:
| Year | No. of flats sold with "full special credit" | No. of flats sold with "halved special credit" | No. of flats sold with "no special credit" |
| 2013-14 | 757 | 101 | 2 388 |
| 2014-15 | 840 | 70 | 2 557 |
| 2015-16 | 820 | 57 | 2 182 |
| 2016-17 | 686 | 61 | 1 444 |
| 2017-18 | 825 | 91 | 2 678 |
(3) Under TPS, a new tenant who purchases a TPS flat within the first two years from the commencement date of his/her tenancy agreement will enjoy a full or half "special credit". The "special credit" will be given in full in the first year and half in the second year. No "special credit" will be offered if the tenant purchases the flat from the third year onwards. The "special credit" is reviewed every two years, the prevailing full credit and half credit are at 35 per cent and 17.5 per cent of the List Price respectively.
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