It’s illegal to rent out your private property in Singapore for less than three consecutive months and HDB flat for less than six months but people still do it anyway.
A quick search on Airbnb’s website shows more than 300 listings in Singapore – most of them are private properties such as condominiums, lofts and landed homes.
Now if you drop the pricing to less than S$50 per night, you’ll see homes that look like HDB flats but listed as “apartment” because there’s no “public housing” category under AirBnB at this point in time.
It’s easy to identify HDB flats based on the windows and the heartland area which it is in- take a look at the photo below.
Some of the HDB flat owners have no qualms listing their property as public housing.
If you look at the photo below, it tells you which block and street this property is situated at.
Airbnb said yesterday that it has told Singapore’s government that, if asked, the company would not list public housing on the platform.
The home-booking company is willing to make some concessions on short-term rentals in Singapore to operate smoothly in Singapore.
For example, they company would consider putting a cap on the number of days hosts in Singapore can rent their property.
Last year, two men were charged in Singapore for unauthorised short-term letting of apartments.
The Singapore Government intends to seek public feedback on this matter in March or April on regulating short-term property rentals.
We spoke lawyer Ben for his views on this matter and he said that enforcement will be tough.
“It is very difficult to enforce the law against short-term rentals. Many disguise the lodgers as social visits.”
If tenants and neighbours do not complain about the Airbnb host, it would be difficult for the Government to go after them.
This is especially so when most of the hosts do not reveal their exact property location until the booking is confirmed.
We asked Ben if it’s possible for the authorities to disguise themselves as tenants and expose the hosts to charge them in court for flouting the law.
He told us that the authorities in Singapore do not “induce crime” unlike other countries.
Nonetheless, it’s better to be safe than sorry unless you’re willing to risk being fined up to $200,000 on each charge like the two men who got caught last year.
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