<translation>Subsidies for new social housing will be up to 500 thousand per apartment.</translation>

Prague - Builders of social rental apartments will be able to obtain a subsidy of up to half a million crowns for each apartment from the State Housing Development Fund. The Ministry of Regional Development (MMR) announced this in a press release today. The government approved support for the construction of social housing on Monday.
    The subsidy will be provided not only for completely new construction but also for the alteration of existing buildings. This is financially less costly in many cases. In such cases, the upper limit of the subsidy will be 420,000 crowns. The total amount of the subsidy, calculated as the sum of subsidies for individual social apartments, must not exceed 30 percent of the total investment costs for the construction of social rental apartments.
    The subsidies are intended for legal entities and individuals to cover part of the costs of constructing supported social rental apartments. "The goal is to support the construction of financially accessible rental apartments for low-income individuals, or those with additional handicaps, who are unable to secure or maintain housing in the market sector," stated the MMR.
    A condition for the allocation of subsidies is that the social rental apartments will serve individuals from the target group for at least ten years within a 15-year period from the completion of construction. After this period, the apartments may be offered on the market at contractual rent or converted into owner-occupied housing.
    However, builders will also have to meet a number of other conditions. For example, the floor area of the social apartment must not exceed 120 square meters in accordance with the VAT Act. When constructing more than ten social apartments, at least one of each subsequent set of ten apartments must be adaptable, meaning it should be prepared for future occupancy by a person with disabilities or a person with limited mobility.
    Among the other conditions for builders is, for instance, that the investor must not have any debts to public budgets. The land for construction must be owned by the investor and may not be subject to a lien by a third party.