Paid-up home-owners learn to demand quality from management

Eldon Shen is not your typical rabble-rouser. At 30 years old, well educated, and a manager at a multinational chemicals company, Mr Shen looks the kind more likely to be spending a quiet weekend at home with his wife than stirring up trouble.

However, Mr Shen's million-yuan (about HK$936,400) home has been the problem ever since he put down his non-refundable deposit at Shanghai Oasis City Garden, a luxury housing project developed by the Shanghai real estate arm of China Ocean Shipping Companies Group (Cosco). He has weathered one broken promise after another.

While Mr Shen's predicament is hardly unusual for Shanghai's hot and cold real estate market, his response has been less than ordinary. He spends his spare time writing and telephoning development company officials and fellow apartment owners in a campaign to improve maintenance and service at the residence. His insistence that his grievances be addressed also reflects how a new generation of urban mainlanders is demanding quality and performance for their hard-earned money.

Mr Shen's headaches began in April 1998, almost immediately after he paid over 140,000 yuan to buy a flat at Oasis City - located on the site of a failed textile factory.

At the time, the residence was one of the hottest buys in the local market and, with Cosco's backing, enjoyed a sterling reputation among city professionals. But Mr Shen soon discovered that many in the development company sales force were tapping the best apartments for family and friends. The 500,000 yuan, two-bedroom flat he wanted to buy became unavailable. With no alternative other than to forfeit his deposit, Mr Shen decided to tighten his belt and agreed to raise his stake to buy a one million yuan duplex.

Later, as he prepared to move in, Mr Shen again was disappointed to discover that many of the facilities promised by the company were unlikely to materialise any time soon. These included a swimming pool and tennis courts. More distressing, still, were haphazard renovations on the outside of buildings, poor upkeep and badly kept public spaces.

The real problem, as far as Mr Shen saw it, started with the developer and its designated management company. Cosco, as part of its agreement to get the land to build Oasis City, had agreed to take a minority position in a joint venture management company which would employ dozens of laid-off textile workers.