bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Yvonne Liu

Group of 30 owners at Chongqing villa project complain of poor quality at Cheung Kong and Hutchison development

At least 30 owners of a luxury villa project in Chongqing have joined forces to ask the developers - Cheung Kong (Holdings) and its associate Hutchison Whampoa - for compensation for the poor quality of their properties.

This is the second mainland residential project developed by Li Ka-shing's flagship companies facing complaints from buyers for failing to meet building standards.

In December, owners of the two companies' development, the Greenwich, in Beijing complained  about the quality of their properties after finding shoddy building materials and slanting walls.

The Chongqing development under the spotlight is Beverly Hills in Yubei new district. It is the first detached villa development in Chongqing and was offered for sale in 2003.

At least 30 owners have teamed up and appointed a law firm to claim compensation from the developers after living with the defects of their properties for almost two years.

The complainants said the developers had responded to their complaint but the long restoration work was annoying and made them disappointed with the development.

'We had paid 20 per cent higher than the other projects in Chongqing for Beverly Hills lured by the brand name of Hutchison Whampoa,' said Mr Yang, who declined to disclose his full name. 'We bought what we thought was a Burberry shirt, but it turned out to be a local brand and the buttons dropped on the first day.'

Prices of the project reached 10,000 yuan per square metre, which was a record in Chongqing, when the project was launched in 2003.

Mr Yang, who bought his house in 2003, found the building quality of the property was below standard after its handover in May 2005.

'The floors and the walls are not flat enough,' he said. 'And the drainage system could not work effectively, which blocked rainwater from draining away and instead made it flow back to the house.'

The air-conditioning system is another problem. 'We were sweating while having dinner in the house during summer, even though the air-conditioner is on,' said Mr Yang.

'The house was not ready for handover when it was delivered,' said another villa owner, Mr Lam, a  Hongkonger who bought a house at Beverly Hills for long-term investment.

After getting complaints from his tenant about the heating system, he bought two heaters  for his house.

In response to the complaints, Hutchison Whampoa Property, a unit of Hutchison Whampoa, said in an e-mail reply that the group had received the owners' views about the project, the surrounding environment and roads in September last year. The problems were fixed within three months.

Beverly Hills was developed by Hutchison Whampoa Properties (Chongqing Jiangbei), a subsidiary of Cheung Kong (China), and Hutchison Whampoa Properties, their first residential project in Chongqing.

The project, completed in 2005, provides 217 villas and was about 60 per cent sold.

Mr Lam said the owners were willing to pay higher prices for Beverly Hills because they had high expectations on the quality of the project. But the project had let them down. Building surveyors and property managers said the  issue might reflect the different monitoring systems on development procedures of Hong Kong and mainland projects.

Hong Kong developers usually appoint in-house constructors to build their projects in Hong Kong. But in the mainland, they would appoint local constructors for their projects according to the mainland practice and therefore quality could be out of their control, according to Wendy Chan, the general manager of Centaline Property Management in Beijing.

David Chan, head of the building consultancy division at Knight Frank, said Hong Kong developers should change the building standards in accordance to the requirements of the mainland cities.

Mr Chan said the central  government had raised the environment protection standards.  Projects could not meet the standards in the mainland if Hong Kong developers followed the standards of Hong Kong.

'Hong Kong developers will face the problem of poor building quality if they follow the usual procedures and standards in Hong Kong,' Mr Chan said.

He suggested that project managers observe strict procedures in the construction of mainland projects to retain the building quality.

Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong have been aggressively pushing into the mainland market in the past 10 years with projects in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Chengdu, Tianjin, Changchun, Xian, Qingdao, Wuhan, Changsha, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai.

They have plans to launch Cape Coral, a luxury residential project in Chongqing, in the first half. The project provides flats, townhouses and lofts.



CK Hutchison’s Victor Li and Canning Fok step aside as managing directors, retain key leadership positions

120 years of SCMP: from AS Watson to HSBC and Star Ferry, many of Hong Kong’s oldest businesses predated the Post

Singapore’s PSA in talks to sell 20 per cent of Hutchison’s ports to China’s state giants, sources say

Unit of Li Ka-shing’s Hutchison submits plan to build 15,075 homes in Tsing Yi to add to Hong Kong’s housing supply, help ease shortage

Hutchison Whampoa

Buyers demand compensation