Judge rejects damages claim by Hong Kong villagers who sold land rights to developer
Five lose case against lawyers and are condemned for making false representations in selling their building rights
Five villagers are millions of dollars out of pocket after a judge threw out their claim for damages over a land deal that turned sour and said both sides had made false representations.
The ruling on the small house policy came four days after the District Court jailed 11 villagers and a developer for misrepresentation and perjury to the Lands Department in their applications.
Mr Justice Anthony To Kwai-fung wrote in his High Court judgment on the civil case that "both the developers and the [villagers] were culpable parties".
Kan Wai-chung, Kan Kar-fai, Kan Wai-ming, Lau Fook Keung and Steven Kan For-ping - of Hang Tau village in Sheung Shui - struck a deal with Sino Favour Development in 1994 to sell their rights as indigenous villagers, or "dings", to build a home for HK$200,000 each.
Under the agreement, the developer assigned land to them and then used their identity as a "ding" to apply for building licences. They agreed to hold the land in trust for the developer.
But the villagers sued when the developer sold the houses without their authorisation. That lawsuit was settled in 2010.
The villagers also sued four partners and the clerk of a law firm, accusing them of "conspiracy with the developers to sell their land lot" and sought damages. The five claimed they had a beneficial interest over the land - if it had not had their "ding rights", the developer could never have built the houses.
But the judge said: "The ding right is a personal right and not a proprietary right. If the ding has no proprietary interest in the land to begin with, he could not have been issued the licence.
"The [villagers] played no lesser or less active role in making false representations in their application for licences.
"Why should the policy favour the dings who are equally culpable and who abused the policy and seek to benefit from their illegality?"
The judge ruled the villagers had no beneficial interest over the land and that they could not ask for damages and the HK$2.17 million in legal fees they spent over the years from the lawyers.
The Lands Department said it would not comment on individual cases but that it would continue to co-operate with law enforcement agencies in following up suspicious cases of small house applications.
