HDB Refused to Act in a $625,000 Flat Sale. Half of All Resales Sell Below the Last One

When you sell an HDB flat, someone has to do the legal work of transferring it: preparing documents, checking the title and making sure the seller gets paid. Most sellers can choose between HDB itself and a private lawyer. Many pick HDB.

The seller of a three-room flat in Tanjong Pagar Plaza asked HDB to act. The flat had about 49 years left on its lease and had found a buyer at $625,000.

HDB's reply, which the agent posted on Facebook on 28 September, read: "We note that the resale price of $625,000 is below the recent resale transacted price of $655,000, HDB is unable to act in the sale." It asked the seller to submit a letter from a lawyer confirming they would act instead, as The Straits Times reported.

That was it. No further explanation was given.

The agent, Vera Wong, told The Straits Times she understood HDB had the right to decide whether to act. But in 18 years as an agent, she said, she had never seen it decline because of a $30,000 gap between a sale price and a recent comparable sale.

Her worry was less about this sale than about the next one. Her client was happy with the price, she said, but an email phrased like that could make another seller think they had been badly advised and had priced their flat too low.

There was no time to argue. The buyer needed the flat urgently, and the seller had been given a week to submit a lawyer's letter. They hired a private lawyer and went ahead.

Ms Wong's post started a debate online about whether HDB was now policing resale prices. By 5 October it had been taken down.

When The Straits Times asked, HDB gave a fuller explanation on 6 October.

The flat was being sold by the executors of an estate with multiple beneficiaries. One of the executors was also one of the beneficiaries. In HDB's words: "As the interests of the beneficiaries may differ, and considering that the asking price is lower than a recent comparable resale transaction, HDB assessed that it was not in a position to ensure that the transaction is conducted properly and that any potential conflict of interest is addressed."

Put simply: when the people selling a flat are not the only people who benefit from the sale, someone has to make sure the others are treated fairly. HDB felt a private lawyer was "better positioned to ensure that all beneficiaries are properly advised", reducing the risk of a dispute later.

The price mattered only as part of that picture. HDB said that for ordinary resale transactions, where owners sell in their own right, it "will generally act for the sellers, regardless of the agreed resale price".

HDB also acknowledged that its email "could have explained the basis for our decision more clearly", and said it had since contacted the sellers to explain.

The email made a $30,000 gap below a recent sale sound like a warning sign. So we checked how common it is.

We took every HDB resale registered from October 2025 to September 2026 and compared it with the most recent earlier resale of the same flat type in the same block. Of 22,840 resales, 21,104 had such a comparable within the previous two years.

48% of them sold for less than that comparable. Nearly a quarter, 24%, sold for $30,000 or more below it. And among the flats that sold below, the median shortfall was $30,000: exactly the gap in Ms Wong's case.

Comparable = the most recent earlier resale of the same flat type in the same block, in an earlier month.

A loose comparable like this ignores floor, size and condition, which is how a "recent transacted price" is usually quoted. If we tighten it to sales on the same storey range, the share selling below drops only a little, to 43%, and the share $30,000 or more below falls to 16%.

In other words, a sale below the last comparable is roughly a coin toss. It is the normal spread of a market where no two flats are quite the same.

Zoom in on the street itself and the picture gets even clearer.

Since October 2023, our records show 58 three-room resales on Tanjong Pagar Plaza. Their median price was $519,000. Only three sold for more than $625,000:

The top sale is the only three-room sale on the street at exactly $655,000, and it was a larger, 70 sq m unit. We cannot confirm it was the transaction HDB's email had in mind, because the reporting does not say. But if it was, the "recent comparable" was the street's highest three-room price in three years.

On those numbers, a sale at $625,000 would have been the fourth-highest of the 59. It was not a cheap sale by the street's standards. It was a near-record sale measured against a record.

We do not know the size or floor of the flat in the news, so we cannot say where it should have priced. But nothing in the street's history suggests $625,000 was out of line.

The Tanjong Pagar Plaza flat had about 49 years left. Flats with shorter leases can be harder to price, because buyers' financing options and CPF use narrow as the lease runs down, and every year matters more.

Our data shows only a small difference. Over the same twelve months:

Flats with under 50 years left were a little more likely to sell below the last comparable. But the share selling $30,000 or more below was no higher than for long-lease flats. A short lease makes a below-comparable sale slightly more common. It does not make it unusual.

HDB set out the kinds of sales it treats as complex, case by case:

• Sales by executors of an estate, especially where beneficiaries' interests may differ.
• Sales arising from a divorce court order, where HDB cannot ensure the order's terms are met or the parties may disagree.
• Sales where a seller lacks the mental capacity to sell the flat.
• Sales where conditions in a will affect the flat's sale.

If your sale is in one of these groups, a few practical points:

Assume you may need a private lawyer, and ask early. In this case, the seller had a week to find one, with a buyer waiting. Finding out at the start costs nothing.

If you are an executor, document the price. Show the beneficiaries the recent sales in your block and how you set the asking price. A clear record protects everyone, including you, if a beneficiary later questions the sale.

Don't panic about a price below the last sale. On our data, almost half of resales sell below the last comparable. What matters is whether your price is fair for your flat: its floor, size, condition and lease.

If you are selling in your own right, HDB says the price is not a reason for it to decline. An ordinary sale at an ordinary price should not trigger this.

How a home is held also shapes what happens when an owner dies. Our explainer on joint tenancy vs tenancy in common covers who ends up owning a flat. Our guide to conveyancing lawyers and fees works out HDB's own fee and what to ask a private lawyer.

This is general commentary, not legal advice. An estate sale is exactly the situation where you should get your own.

Some limits, stated plainly.

We cannot see the flat in the news. Our HDB data runs to September 2026, and the sale has not appeared in it. We do not know its size, floor or condition, so we cannot judge its price directly.

We cannot confirm which sale HDB used as its comparable. We found one three-room sale on the street at exactly $655,000, but HDB's email did not identify it.

Our comparable is loose on purpose. It matches block and flat type only, because that is how a "recent transacted price" is usually quoted. The storey-matched figure is the stricter test, and it still shows 43% of sales landing below.

Months, not days. HDB's records give a registration month, so we only compare a sale with ones from earlier months.

Below the comparable is not the same as underpriced. A flat can sell below the last sale because it is on a lower floor, smaller, unrenovated or simply sold to the buyer who was ready. Our numbers say nothing about whether any seller was well or badly advised.

What we would not hedge on: a resale price below the last comparable, on its own, is not a reason to worry. HDB's concern in this case was who was selling, not what they sold for.

Two kinds of numbers, kept apart.

From the reporting: HDB's email and its wording, the $625,000 and $655,000 prices, the flat's location and remaining lease, Ms Wong's comments and experience, the timeline of the sale and the Facebook post, and HDB's explanation and list of complex cases all come from The Straits Times, linked below.

PropKaki's own data, from HDB resale records to September 2026:

• The comparable-sale analysis compares each resale registered from October 2025 to September 2026 with the most recent earlier resale of the same flat type in the same block, within 24 months (the median, where several sold in that month). The stricter version also requires the same storey range.
• The Tanjong Pagar Plaza figures list every resale on the street since October 2023.
• The fourth-highest ranking places the reported $625,000 among those 58 recorded sales.

The news:

• The Straits Times: Request to act as solicitor for flat resale was declined due to complexity of the sale: HDB, 7 October 2026.

The data:

• PropKaki analysis of HDB resale transactions, October 2023 to September 2026.

This is commentary by the PropKaki Editorial Desk on reporting by The Straits Times. The email, the comments and HDB's explanation belong to that reporting; the resale analysis, the framing and the opinions are ours.

It is opinion and general information, not legal, financial or property advice, and not a valuation of any flat. Executors and anyone selling a flat in a complex situation should get independent legal advice.

Published 7 October 2026.