Authorities want to legalise developers' guidelines and regulate agents' behaviour The government is considering making new guidelines issued by the Real Estate Developers' Association legally enforceable, placing more controls on residential property sales. A senior government source said the authorities would like the guidelines, announced two weeks ago, to form part of the consent scheme. This means they could suspend the sale of a project by withdrawing the consent scheme if a developer breached regulations. Under the new guidelines, developers must put up at least 20 units or 20 per cent of the first batch of flats in a new project for initial sale. The new guidelines were issued by the association (Reda) after a meeting with the Consumer Council and the Estate Agents Authority on August 25. Vendors must also have a price list ready 24 hours before a sale, and for subsequent sales a list has to be published immediately after a sale is announced. The source said the latest idea was floated when officials, the Consumer Council and the association met last month, but was opposed by developers who stressed self-discipline was enough to deal with the situation. 'Since the Reda issued these guidelines, I cannot see why they cannot accept putting this as part of the consent scheme,' the source said. 'We are working on the issue of property sales tactics from two directions. Apart from making guidelines legally enforceable, we want to regulate agents' behaviour in the property sales venue.' Sandy Chan Pui-shan, chief executive of the Estate Agents Authority, said a new code of practice would be issued soon to clarify the relationship between the developers and the agent during sales. 'The code of practice will require that information released by agents to the clients comes from the developers. This will ensure the information is accurate and consistent.' Mrs Chan said a practice circular would also focus on the publication of sales figures, collection of so-called reservation fees from potential buyers, and the handling of buyers' identity cards. Controversy was triggered last month when estate agents believed to be selling Sun Hung Kai's Park Island flats demanded buyers pay HK$50,000 before they could see price lists. The developer said it had not issued such an order. There were also complaints of a lack of sales brochures and price lists at Le Point developed by Cheung Kong (Holdings). The Consumer Council said it was concerned about other sales tactics adopted by developers. 'It should be time for us to have a more comprehensive review of property sales procedures,' said council chief executive Pamela Chan Wong Shui. The council was looking at how the industry's operation could be improved, even though it did not have a concrete timetable, she said. It would be ideal for developers to adopt open sales rules, requiring them to announce a price list and the flats available seven days in advance. Open sales of flats have almost been abandoned by developers since the government scrapped the cap on private sales at 15 per cent of units in a project in 2002. Most sales of residential properties are now private ones. The government source said it would be difficult to switch property sales regulations back to the old days. 'Developers would oppose it very hard. There should be some basic fairness, and transparency should be maintained, but we have to strike a balance between buyers and developers' interests.'