The ruling requiring estate agents to advertise the actual area of a property offered for sale on the secondary market comes a bit late for Cindy Yiu.
A few years ago she bought a second-hand flat in La Cite Noble, a development in Tseung Kwan O, which according to the estate agent's assessment of the gross floor area covered 527 square feet.
Yiu, a marketing officer, was aware that 'gross floor area' was a notional estimate that included the common areas of the building, such as the clubhouse, lobby and the watchman's office.
So she asked the agent for the flat's efficiency ratio, which is its actual floor area - or 'saleable area' - divided by the gross floor area and expressed as a percentage.
'He could not give me a clear answer, saying only, 'It is about close to 80 per cent.' So I thought, 'It's about 79 per cent,' which was good, so I bought it,' said Yiu. Later, she learned from a relative working at a bank that the ratio was 77 per cent.
It meant her own space was about 406 square feet, as opposed to the 416 square feet she understood the agent to mean. Yiu said: 'I felt that the agent had been dishonest. The [two percentage point] difference means a difference of 10 square feet, a lot for this small home.
'My husband and I have a lot of personal belongings, so every square inch is important. It's no use giving me a share of the clubhouse area.'
