The Buildings Department has won a six-month legal battle for a demolition order against a decades-old illegal neighbourhood in a To Kwa Wan alley.
Ruling in favour of the government, District Court Judge Michael Wong Yat-ming asked the Department of Justice to communicate with other departments to help secure the smooth resettlement of a dozen residents of the tin-roofed structures, some of them a half-century old.
But Wong dismissed the department's application for the residents to bear the government's legal costs.
Nine residents appearing as litigants yesterday expressed worries about finding other homes which they said they almost certainly could not afford.
"I'm illiterate," Ho Man-yuen told the court. "When I saw a notice put up there, I thought it was telling me to go get my old-age allowance."
Speaking outside court, tenant Ho Kam-hong said he was disappointed.