What are the criteria for a housing developer’s licence? What’s a sale license and what’s a no sale license?Sale vs No sale.
CRITERIA FOR A HOUSING DEVELOPER’S LICENCE
| Requirement | Description |
| Criteria For Sale and No-Sale Licence | |
| Planning approval | A valid provisional permission or written permission has been issued for the
development. |
| Land ownership | Applicant must own the land on which the development is being built.
If the applicant does not own the land, the applicant must provide: A : a Power of Attorney which specifies that the landowner appoints the developer as the landowner’s attorney to develop the land and sell units in the development; |
| B : a Deed of Confirmation, confirming that the landowner will, if the developer sells units in the project, transfer the titles of the units sold to the purchasers; and | |
| C : a confirmation that the landowner is not and is not controlled by a terrorist or
terrorist entity as defined under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act or a designated person as defined under any of the regulations made under the United Nations Act. |
|
| Audited accounts | A copy of the latest audited accounts, verified by a statutory declaration by the person holding a responsible position 1. |
| Applicant and persons holding a responsible
position 1 |
A : Persons holding a responsible position are not un-discharged bankrupts;
B : Persons holding a responsible position have not been convicted of an offence (whether in Singapore or elsewhere) involving fraud or dishonesty or served any sentence of imprisonment (whether in Singapore or elsewhere) in respect of an offence involving fraud or dishonesty within the last 5 years. C : Applicant or persons holding a responsible position are not a terrorist or a terrorist entity under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act or a designated person as defined under the regulations made under the United Nations Act. D : Applicant is not owned or controlled by any person who is a designated terrorist or terrorist entity as defined under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act or by any designated person or entity as defined under the regulations made under the United Nations Act. E : Applicant, not being a public listed company, does not have a shareholder who is terrorist or terrorist entity as defined under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act or who is a designated person as defined under any of the regulations made under the United Nations Act (not applicable if the applicant is a listed company). |
| Requirement | Description | ||||
| Criteria For Sale and No-Sale Licence | |||||
| Paid-up capital, security or deposit | For a Sale Licence
A minimum paid-up capital of between S$1 million and S$4 million for a company or minimum deposit of between S$1 million and S$4 million for non-company applicants, in the form of a Banker’s Guarantee or Insurer’s Guarantee. (Please see table below). |
||||
| Size of project
(number of housing units) |
Minimum paid-up capital / deposit amount | ||||
| ≤ 50 units | S$1 million | ||||
| 51 – 200 units | S$2 million | ||||
| 201 – 400 units | S$3 million | ||||
| More than 400 units | S$4 million | ||||
| For a No-Sale Licence
Minimum paid-up capital of S$100,000 (for a company). |
|||||
Requirement Description
Criteria for a Sale Licence
Project Account A) letter from a financial institution confirming that a Project Account has been opened
OR
B) Banker’s Guarantee or Insurer’s Guarantee of an amount equivalent to at least 140% of the total cost of construction of the project, together with a certification of the total cost of construction by the architect in charge of the project.
Track record The applicant, a director in the company, the president of the society, a partner in the partnership or a partner or manager in the limited liability partnership has, in the past 5 years:
A) completed satisfactorily a licensed residential project (more than 4 units ), where a minimum size requirement imposed for the completed project will be used to determine the size of the new housing project, as shown in the table below; or
Size of completed licensed project used as track record
(number of housing units) Size of new project (number of housing units)
≤ 10 units 100 units No restriction
B) Completed satisfactorily a reasonably sized residential project within the last 5 years overseas.
For an applicant using the track record of the company, at least one of the directors who had completed the licensed housing project must remain on board as a director of the company.
The acceptance of track record for the issue of a sale licence is at the discretion of the Controller. If you have doubts over the acceptability of your track record, you may wish to write in to the Controller of Housing, with details of the projects completed (e.g. number of units, gross floor area, year of completion), to determine if your track record is acceptable for the issue of a sale licence.
1 Under section 2 of the Housing Developers (Control & Licensing) Act, person(s) holding a
“responsible position” in relation to a housing developer means:
a in the case of a company, a director, manager (principal executive officer of company) or
company secretary;
b in the case of a society, a president, secretary or treasurer;
c in the case of a partnership, a partner;
d in the case of limited liability partnership, a partner or manager;
e in the case of a group of persons, any person in that group.