Description of Flats on Sale
(HKLRC Report)
This report, published in April 1995, looked at ways to curb misleading sales descriptions of uncompleted flats in Hong Kong. Despite the great importance of property transactions to the average person, the sales information available to purchasers of uncompleted flats in Hong Kong is often inaccurate and inadequate. There have been cases in which the actual size of the flats is much smaller than that which would be expected from the sales literature.
The report recommends that the term "gross floor area" in sales literature should be standardised. The inclusion of "saleable area" in sales literature should be made mandatory by legislation. The sales brochure should contain floor plans with specified details such as the external dimensions of individual units, the orientation, location of ingress and egress points, load bearing walls, exposed pipes, etc. There should also be a list of specified fittings and finishes in all sales brochures. All information in the sales brochure must be accurate at the time of first sale of units in a development. Advertisements (other than a sales brochure) for the public sale of flats by developers or the private sale of flats by property agents must state that a sales brochure is available. Information given in any advertisement must be consistent with the information given in the sales brochure.
| Report (PDF) (MS Word) |