Buildings Department officials on Tuesday confirmed unauthorised building works were found in two flats owned by a company linked to the wife of Development Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, and ordered the flat owners to remove the illegal works.
The flat at A4, 4/F, Hoi Hing Building in Tai Kok Tsui was sub-divided into several rooms, each provided with a toilet and a kitchen, a spokesman said, announcing the results of a department inspection of the two flats.
Although the sub-division work did not obstruct or affect the means of escape, or show any obvious drainage defects, one of the rooms was overloaded with partitions and had a thickened floor slab, calling for removal action.
“As [the room] was situated on the cantilevered slab balcony, the partitions sub-dividing the room and the thickening of the floor slab in the room caused overloading of the cantilevered slab,” the spokesman said.
Unauthorised building works causing overloading of the building were “actionable items subject to priority enforcement action”, the spokesman said.
The inspection was conducted after it emerged that Harvest Charm Development, where Chan’s wife Frieda Hui Po-ming holds a controlling stake and Chan was once a director, leased the subdivided rooms.