We will “owe” to our CPF OA whatever CPF OA amount we use for our house purchase and home loan, which we can see by login onto our CPF site and going to the Home Ownership Dashboard. The Total principle amount withdrawn (the actual amount used) and Total accumulated interest are shown here (we also have to refund the interest we would have earned if we kept the principal amount in our CPF). This sum will only be repaid to our CPF OA when we sell our home. The amount we “owe” our CPF OA is not fixed. It will continue to accrue at a rate of 2.5 percent per year until we complete the refund. This is sometimes referred to as the accumulated interest on our house purchase funds. You can try CPF Ordinary Account
Housing grants may be available to persons acquiring a HDB apartment. We must keep in mind that housing grants are paid into our CPF OA, which forms our OA funds. We must reimburse any portion of the housing grant, as well as any accumulated interest, that we used to acquire our property. Because we are likely to have used a significant portion of our CPF OA money for our house purchase and monthly home loan payments, we may be in for a surprise once we sell our property and learn how much must be repaid to our CPF OA.
This is not the same as paying off our home loan, and it has no bearing on how much we owe the bank or how much we have to continue to pay for our HDB or personal land monthly home loan. In reality, even after we have finished repaying our house loan, we will still “owe” our CPF Ordinary Account.
Often, it makes no difference how much we owe our CPF OA because we are only needed to refund it if we sell our real estate and also if there is an insufficient number after selling our property, we generally do not have to make cash refunds. However, there are compelling reasons to consider making a Voluntary Housing Refund (VHR) while still residing in our house.