Great homes for midgets, providing they're slim

It's bad enough when a developer's show flat features furniture fit only for children or midgets. But when there's no mock-up flat and buyers are forced to rely on diagrams and models, the ruse is even harder to spot.

That's precisely the problem facing would-be buyers at The Oakhill, a Lai Sun Development project under construction in Wan Chai where flats went on sale last Friday - promoted with 'furniture layout plans' that feature items much too small for the average adult.

While potential buyers can refer to a sales brochure that contains floor plans without furniture and gives the overall dimensions of the flats, they are being encouraged to view the 'furniture layout plans' on the project website.

But measure the bed in the master bedroom against the scale of the corresponding floor plan and you discover it is barely 1.5 metres by 1.2 metres - at least 30cm shorter than standard.

Putting a standard-length bed in the smaller bedroom would leave no room to walk around the foot of it.

Wardrobes in the master bedroom are only 30cm deep, half as deep as a standard wardrobe and too small to hang a man's suit in properly. In the dining room, six people are expected to cram around a table on chairs which are just 30cm wide.

Designing Hong Kong, an urban activist group, says if the items were replaced with furniture on the market - from IKEA, for example - the rooms would look less spacious on paper.