BLOOD may be thicker than water, but for the Tang clans' blood may soon be about to boil in a dispute over land ownership.
Descendants of two Chinese patriarchs who were members of the same clan are claiming ownership of five lots of land which they jointly owned with two other Tang clans.
At stake is 68,000 square feet of remote hilly land in Tai Po which the heads of the three clans bought in 1928, each paying $5,000.
Two of the clans are united in their wish to sell the land, but members of the third are bitterly divided over which of them has the rights to the property and the title deeds.
With the issue of a Supreme Court writ last week it looks as if the heads of the families, which once proudly called each other brother, may limit their exchanges to a courtroom.
When the sale was made 65 years ago, the name of the senior member of the now-warring clan, Tang Wai-tong, was written on the title deeds, along with the patriarchs of the other two Tang clans.