Lawmaker stands up for elderly cohabitation rights

The spousal cohabitation rights of some applicants for senior apartments have been deprived due to age difference, lawmaker Nick Lei said yesterday in his pre-agenda speech at the parliament.

According to the rules, the eligibility for the apartments is at least 65 years of age, among other criteria. Applicants are allowed to apply in pairs so that they can live in the same apartment with better care and company.

The lawmaker pointed out, however, that some applicants are not allowed to apply in pairs because their spouses are not yet 60. Instead, their spouses were asked to apply as caretaker, the eligibility for which is determined through vetting by the Social Welfare Bureau (IAS).

Citing a provision in the Civil Code that concerns the cohabitation duty of spouses, the lawmaker added that the rules did not take into account the needs of spouses with greater age differences.

Regarding this scenario, the lawmaker called on the government to drop the need for vetting eligibility, proposing applicants simply submit declarations instead.

Lei underlined that spousal applicants should not be deprived of their cohabitation rights due to age even if some do not meet minimum age requirements.

He also warned the government about the possibility of tenants not being able to pay their rent, should their economic status change.

Another lawmaker, Stanley Ma, wondered if the government is attuned to the reality of the demand for property. Although the current round of applications for economic housing does not appear to be popular, Ma pointed out that bureaucratic concerns could be the reason for the drop in demand.

The government has decided to open applications without including prices, discouraging interested applicants. Additionally, the sudden update to income thresholds prior to this application period has exempted some people who were previously eligible.

Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng claimed that the issue of low economic housing supply has been resolved, resulting in a temporary halt to the sandwich-class housing project.

As such, he forecast that future economic housing application schemes will not be popular. On the one hand, interested applicants – especially young applicants – will not have enough information to evaluate their purchasing power if no pricing information is released during the application process.

On the other hand, the lack of sandwich-class housing will affect interested applicants in their decisions as to whether they should risk purchasing private housing, which is expected to be more expensive than sandwich-class housing units.

Based on these concerns, he wondered how the government could encourage youths to sustain Macau’s population amid an ongoing declining birth rate.

The government has changed the nature of economic housing, eliminating this form of investment and the future possibility of resale on the market. Apartment owners will only be permitted to resell their units to the Housing Bureau (IH) at the initial acquisition price, after deduction of the costs for restoring the unit to its original state.