Owners demand interest-free loans
Terms offered Albert House residents would make it 'impossible' to repay loans for $25m bill for canopy collapse
The Aberdeen flat owners hit with a $25 million court bill for a fatal canopy collapse yesterday demanded the government give them indefinite, interest-free loans.
The Albert House residents earlier rejected revised payment terms for loans the government offered last week to ease their plight.
Owners' representative Au Shuet-fai said it would be 'impossible' for the owners to repay the loans on the terms offered.
On Friday, they were offered loans of up to $200,000, to be repaid over three years. The first $50,000 would be interest-free, but interest would be charged at prime lending rate on the balance.
The elderly or impoverished could apply for interest-free loans repayable only when they sold their flats.
Yesterday, Home Affairs Secretary Patrick Ho Chi-ping said the government was prepared to negotiate on the interest rate and would discuss a three-year extension to the repayment period.
But the owners proposed instead that all owners be given interest-free loans. In return they would agree to their titles being frozen, with flat sales permitted only in order to repay loans.
The Court of First Instance ruled in November that the 88 flat owners had to pay an additional $25 million to landlord Aberdeen Winner Investment for their share of legal costs, interest and compensation arising from the 1994 collapse of a concrete canopy, in which one person was killed and eight injured.
The Court of Appeal upheld that judgment.
Some of the 54 owners protesting have been sleeping outside Legco for almost three weeks.
Mr Au said: 'To repay $200,000 in three years is impossible in this economy if you have an ordinary job. There are owners who work as security guards for $6,000 a month. How are they supposed to live?'
In a rare show of unity, politicians from across the spectrum showed up to back the owners.
They included Choy So-yuk and Wong Kwok-hing of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, Democrats Martin Lee Chu-ming and Yeung Sum, and independent Albert Cheng King-hon.
Mr Cheng said the government was proposing owners pay interest just 1.5 per cent below the prime rate, when banks were offering rates of prime minus 3 per cent and repayment over 15 years.
A Home Affairs Bureau spokeswoman was asked if the government would consider the counter-proposal but she said the revised offer was final.
