Housing and Development
Act 1959
2020 REVISED EDITION
This revised edition incorporates all amendments up to and including 1 December 2021 and comes into operation on 31 December 2021
An Act to constitute a Housing and Development Board for Singapore.
[1 February 1960]
PART 1
PRELIMINARY
Short title
1.  This Act is the Housing and Development Act 1959.
Interpretation
2.—(1)  In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires —
“authorised occupier” means a person who is —
(a)named in an application made to the Board as the person who intends to reside in the flat, house or other living accommodation sold or to be sold by the Board under Part 4; or
(b)authorised in writing by the Board to reside therein except that, where the person has entered, stayed or remained in Singapore in contravention of any provision of any written law relating to immigration, he or she is deemed not to be an authorised occupier from the date of contravention;
“Board” means the Housing and Development Board established under section 3;
“building” includes any house, flat, hut, shed, roofed enclosure or other accommodation, whether used for the purpose of human habitation or otherwise, and also any wall, fence, platform, staging gate, post, pillar, paling, frame hoarding, slip, dock, wharf, pier, jetty, landing-stage or bridge, or any structure or foundation connected to the foregoing;
“buildings or works” includes waste materials, refuse and other matters deposited on land, and reference to the erection or construction of buildings or works is to be construed accordingly;
“building operations” includes any building or erectional operations, rebuilding operations, structural alterations of or additions to buildings and other operations normally undertaken by a person carrying on business as a builder and the making of access roads, railways, waterworks, electrical installations and any road works preliminary or incidental to the erection of buildings;
“Central Provident Fund Board” means the Central Provident Fund Board constituted under section 3 of the Central Provident Fund Act 1953;
“Chairperson” means the Chairperson of the Board;
“Chief Executive Officer” means the Chief Executive Officer of the Board, and includes any individual acting in that capacity;
“Collector” has the meaning given by the Land Revenue Collection Act 1940;
“commercial property” means any flat, house or building or any part thereof which is permitted to be used pursuant to the Planning Act 1998 or any other written law for the purpose of carrying on any business or which is lawfully so used;
“common property” means so much of the developed land and all parts of the building as are not comprised in the flats in a building;
“developed land” means any land of the Board upon which a building has been erected;
“flat” means a horizontal stratum of any building or part thereof, whether the stratum or part is on one or more levels or is partially or wholly below the surface of the ground;
“Housing and Urban Development Company” means the Housing and Urban Development Company (Private) Limited incorporated in Singapore under the Companies Act 1967;
“Jurong Town Corporation” means the Jurong Town Corporation established by the Jurong Town Corporation Act 1968;
“lease” includes an agreement for a lease;
“Master Plan” has the meaning given by the Planning Act 1998;
“officer” means an officer of the Board;
“owner”, in relation to any property sold by the Board, includes a person who has purchased a leasehold interest in the property and also includes a purchaser under an agreement for a lease.
[13/2015; 5/2018]
(2)  References in this Act to a flat, house or other living accommodation are to be construed to include references to the land appurtenant to the flat, house or other living accommodation.
(3)  In any other written law and in any other document whatsoever, unless the context otherwise requires, any reference to the Singapore Improvement Trust is, except in respect of its planning functions, to be construed as a reference to the Board.