An HDB flat buyer can be referred to as an owner, lessee or tenant.

But according to the latest Straits Times forum reply on Aug. 14, 2017, by the Housing & Development Board, the most correct answer is that leasehold HDB flat buyers are owners.

A two-month debate

This latest response puts a cap on a two-month debate playing out in the forum pages and online.

But it is likely it will continue to be played up periodically. Here's why.

Started as a question about property tax

On June 24, the debate got started when one Singaporean asked innocently enough: Why HDB flat buyers must pay property tax?

The reasoning is that since HDB flat buyers are purchasers of a temporary piece of property, limited by the duration of the lease, they cannot exactly own it in perpetuity.

HDB responded three weeks later sidestepping the property tax issue, but addressed the query that HDB flat buyers are owners.

On July 20 and 21, another pair of forum letters by regular Singaporeans pointed out that HDB flat buyers are more like lessees than anything else, and HDB should be more clear in its responses.

Land recycled

Clearer they tried to be, as the HDB Aug. 14 response explains, the 99-year leasehold system allows land to be recycled and redeveloped. The implicit understanding is that the property is returned to the state for free when its lease ends.

Not entirely unfair, but not exactly the clearest explanation either.

Until ST elucidated further.

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HDB can call you anything it wants

A follow-up analysis of the issue in ST pointed out that HDB flat buyers receive subsidies from the state, which differs from leasehold private property buyers -- even though both sets of buyers are owners for the limited duration of their leases.

Although not mentioned outright, there is an implicit acknowledgement that the provision of subsidies as benefits by HDB to buyers allows more leeway granted to HDB in calling flat buyers whatever they want because of this subsidy arrangement and transfer of benefits from state to citizens.

Semantics and rootedness to Singapore

This question of semantics goes further.

As pointed out by some experts quoted by ST, labelling buyers as owners increases their stake in society, as it connotes rootedness and identity.

Social compact

So, this issue at the end of the day, boils down to a social compact between the people and the state.

To have a stake in Singapore, you get to literally own a piece of it in the form of housing -- albeit temporarily, because either you or the flat's lease expires first.

A tax-paying citizen is then subjected to the laws of the land, which is also to accept the designation ascribed to you when you enter into this social contract for the betterment of yourself and the society.

And this involves the paying of property taxes, being taxed twice and have the value of your flat fall to zero after 99 years, whether you like it or not.

Top photo via Pixabay