Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho on Saturday said she hoped landlords of subdivided flats would take action to upgrade them, even though they now had a longer grace period to comply with new criteria.

Under the Housing Bureau's latest proposal for a regulatory framework to manage the city’s subdivided units, landlords will be given a 36-month grace period to make necessary improvements so they can be certified as Basic Housing Units.

The grace period was previously proposed as 12 - or up to 24 months - after a 12-month registration period.

The administration has also introduced a countdown period, starting six months before the end of the grace period.

During the countdown period, landlords who enter new tenancy contracts for units that haven’t been certified may face a maximum fine of HK$300,000 and be jailed for up to three years.

Ho told a Commercial Radio programme that she hoped landlords wouldn't leave their renovations until the last minute.

“Just like when we were in university and the lecturer gave us two extra weeks to finish our coursework, some students would just go watch a movie, thinking they had plenty of time. We want to avoid that with landlords. Even though the grace period is extended, we need to introduce some kind of enforcement to ensure they stay on track and don’t get too relaxed,” said Ho.

Landlords also have to hire a certified professional to assess their units in order to obtain the Basic Housing Unit recognition, which will be valid for five years.

Ho noted that the list of certified professionals has been expanded to include some 8,000 engineers, which now also feature specialists under the disciplines of fire and building services.

A fee is payable to the government for the certification process and the housing minister said the charge would be around a few thousand dollars, although the exact amount has yet to be finalised.

The government’s revised Basic Housing Units legislation will be discussed in Legco's housing panel on Monday.

Meanwhile, the first group of 50 light public housing tenants moved into their flats in Yuen Long on Friday.

Ho said about 50 to 100 tenants would move in every day and the plan is to get all 2,156 tenants for the Yau Pok Road project to move in by the end of May.