According to a question asked by Shing Kong Constituency Councillor Ho Ting-yu of the Workers' Party, the HDB received 411 applications in 2022 from HDB owners who were unable to sell their flats due to the racial ceiling. HDB approved 131 of these cases, while in another four cases, the owners opted for the Buyback Assistance Scheme and sold their flats back to HDB.

Of all the complaints, 14 per cent were from the Chinese community, 25 per cent were from the Malay community and the remaining 61 per cent were from the Indian community and other races.

Last year, the Ministry of National Development (MND) announced the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP), which allows homeowners who have difficulty in selling their flats at a reasonable price due to the racial ceiling to apply to HDB to sell back their flats.

In order to be eligible for EIP HDB buy-back assistance, the owner needs to meet certain eligibility criteria, including having lived in the flat for a minimum period of residence, having owned the flat for at least 10 years and having tried to sell the flat at a reasonable asking price for a period of time. Generally speaking, six months is sufficient for most homeowners to sell their flats.

If the owner meets the eligibility criteria, the HDB will appoint a licensed valuer to value the flat and offer a fair buy-back offer.

However, Lee Chi Sing pointed out that most of the EIP affected complaints received by HDB last year did not meet the requirements for buy-back assistance. These homeowners either did not continuously attempt to sell their HDB flats or had not owned their flats for at least 10 years.

He also stressed that HDB will continue to provide assistance measures if a homeowner faces genuine difficulties in selling his or her HDB flat after reaching the EIP cap.