Renovation is a PITA (Pain In The Ass). There are so many decisions that you have to make, but you aren’t exactly in the best frame of mind to think through your options because you have to find a temporary dwelling, strip your flat of all your possessions, and shop for new electrical appliances. Hence, you can’t possibly foresee certain problems until they stab you in your back and demand for your immediate attention. I hope that by sharing my recent experience, you can avoid one pitfall.

Which may be the most significant - according to my wife, at least.

It is customary to get a renovation permit from the Housing Development Board, especially if you intend to hack your walls. This requirement was salient in my wife’s mind, and she asked my interior designer (ID) twice about whether we should secure the permit first.

My ID reassured us, no need. Getting a HDB reno permit was a relatively straightforward process. Only requires about 5 working days.

So, we put the permit issue to the back of our minds. We took some time to tie down the details of the design of our revamped flat. Our contractor applied for a permit after we paid him $20 deposit.

This was when the unexpected happened. A HDB personnel called my contractor and requested to do a site visit on a Friday. After examining things for himself, he explained to my contractor that apparently, my resale flat belonged to the precast/prefabricated model. Hence, no hacking of walls could be done, for fear of damaging the structural integrity of the flat (and even other things). No, in this case, was a complete sentence. My contractor asked the HDB guy about the possibility of making holes on the walls instead. He got turned down.

Did I tell you that the renovation was scheduled to happen on the following Monday? So, this means that we had to pivot and change our design during the weekend.

My wife was furious. In her mind, she had asked our ID to get the reno permit not once, but twice. She was of the opinion that if she had known earlier that the walls couldn’t be hacked, she could have adapted to the situation and thought through the alternatives. As it is, she felt pressured that she had to make last-minute decisions.

So, the moral of the story is, finalise the design of your design as soon as you can so that the contractor can seek permission from HDB. If HDB says no, at the very least, you will have more than one weekend to pivot and pick up the pieces. Don’t be like us!