There are nearly two applicants for every available home-ownership scheme (HOS) flat in the Zone A land reclamation area.
The Housing Bureau has accepted 9,796 submissions in its latest round of applications for 5,254 subsidised flats. The application period ran from 14 July to 30 November last year, during which the bureau received 11,707 applications.
The bureau rejected 1,911 applications, after a two-week period earlier this year for the provisionally rejected applicants to appeal to the bureau.
Work started on the 5,254 HOS flats earlier this year; they comprise 242 one-bedroom units, 4,478 two-bedroom units and 534 three-bedroom units.
The bureau announced a provisional acceptance list in March this year, when 9,667 of the 11,707 applications were provisionally accepted, while the remaining 2,040 were provisionally rejected.
After the announcement of the provisional acceptance list, rejected applicants could choose to appeal to the Housing Bureau; the bureau received 221 appeals from rejected applicants.
After follow-up assessments, the bureau has now decided to accept 129 of the 221 applications that it had previously rejected, while the appeals of the remaining, 92 were rejected.
Consequently, according to the final acceptance list announced yesterday, 9,796 of the 11,707 applications have been accepted, while the remaining 1,911 have been rejected.
Rejected applicants announced on the final list can still appeal to the Administrative Court against the Housing Bureau’s final decision.
The latest round of applications was the first one carried out in line with the amended HOS law, which took effect in August 2020.
According to the current version of the law, the allocation of HOS flats is carried out on a points-based system, whereas under the previous version HOS flats were allocated through a lucky draw process but with priority given to family applicants (those with senior citizens in particular) over individual applicants.
Under the previous version of the law, HOS units could be sold on the private market after the owners had owned them for a certain number of years, while according to the current version, HOS unit owners can only sell their flats back to the Housing Bureau.
The 9,796 accepted applicants are ranked on the list announced yesterday according to scores calculated based on various factors and variables, for the allocation of the purchase of the 5,254 HOS flats, The Macau Post Daily reported.
