Hong Kong developers halt sales while brochures rewritten for new rules

Developers will suspend sales of unsold flats at more than 30 new residential projects next week to comply with a new law requiring them to specify the size of flats in all their marketing material as well as provide additional information on the developments.

Under the new law governing sales of new homes due to take effect on April 29, developers are required to provide comprehensive information on their projects, including the "saleable floor area", a detailed location plan of the development, and the name of every street that is situated within 250 metres of the boundary of the project.

Until now the practice has been to advertise new flats by referring to their "gross floor area", which includes common areas such as lift lobbies, clubhouses, electricity meter rooms and rubbish collection areas. The saleable floor area of a property is the actual usable space of the flat, balcony, utility platform and verandahs.

"We have been informed by seven developers to stop selling the remaining units at more than 30 of their projects next week," a director at Midland Realty, Sammy Po, said.

An associate director of developer Sino Land, Victor Tin Sio-un, said the firm told agents to stop selling flats at 22 of its projects by April 22, as developers were required to publish sales brochures of new projects seven days ahead of their official launch.

"As sales brochures of these projects need to be changed in accordance with the new rule, we are working closely with architects, surveyors and lawyers to come up with brand new versions," he said.

Given the time-consuming preparation required, Tin said, priority would be given to four projects recently launched for pre-sale, while those that had been on sale for a long time would be changed later.