For 14 Hong Kong investors, their Hengqin dream homes, with a single toilet between 14 flats, do not live up to the advertising
- The Huafa Yuetiandi, a six-storey tower and part of a multiphase project by Huafa Industrial Zhuhai, was marketed as a commercial-residential mixed use project
- At least 14 Hong Kong buyers were enraged when they received their purchase agreement showing their property to be strictly for commercial use, with one shared toilet between 14 units
A real estate project in Zhuhai city’s Hengqin district that was sold as commercial-residential property for mixed use has evolved into a potential legal wrangle, as at least 14 Hong Kong buyers are planning legal action on claims of being misled by the developer.
The Huafa Yuetiandi, a six-storey tower and part of a multiphase project by Huafa Industrial Zhuhai, was built on commercial land, and forbidden to be used as abodes. Buyers who were sold the project as mixed-use real estate were enraged when they found that there was only one shared, public toilet for 14 units on each floor. They are demanding for the developer to refund their “furnishing fees”.
“I felt like I was cheated,” said Salina Lau, a civil servant in her 30s who paid 2.57 million yuan (US$369,800) for a flat measuring 63.72 square metres (686 square feet) as retirement home for her father. “The agent [initially] said it was for commercial-residential use. We saw there was a washroom and kitchen in the showrooms, but they turned out to be usable only in an office environment where multiple units shared a common toilet, she said.
Huafa Industrial, based in Zhuhai city, did not respond to emailed requests and phone calls for comment. The episode underscores the potential risk for buyers in cross-border investments, especially where it comes to the fine print of contracts, trusting the assurances of developers and sales agents and the difference between illustrations and reality. Buying property outside Hong Kong is “very complicated”, and “consumers should stay vigilant,” said the city’s Estate Agents Authority, in a statement.
Hongkongers are allowed to buy up to two residential units each in Zhuhai, following the liberalisation of local ownership rules last November. Before then, their only access to abodes in the city neighbouring Macau is through buying space that could be used as homes, built on commercial land.
Up to 80 per cent of all projects on sale in Hengqin are of this nature, according to an estimate by Sam Yan, a director at Century 21, a real estate agency, in Zhuhai. Only about four to five projects, making up 7 per cent of Hengqin’s land, were allocated for residential use, he said.
