Developers will no longer be able to fool flat owners with artists' impressions of grand clubhouses and expansive green slopes that seldom materialise, under new guidelines that will prevent such features from appearing in sales brochures.
They will also be required to put nearby residential developments and unpopular facilities, such as landfill sites and cargo working areas, on location maps in their brochures.
But critics and the Consumer Council said more should done, because developers would still be allowed to use unrealistic graphics and pictures in promotional materials such as fliers and television advertisements, and purchasers would still not know what kind of common areas they were buying.
The guidelines, which are not legally binding, were announced by the Real Estate Developers Association yesterday in response to recent criticism that pictures and details in sales brochures were misleading.
Green Sense revealed in June that Cheung Kong (Holdings) had failed to show a landfill site opposite Lohas Park in Tseung Kwan O on the sales brochure's location map, while pictures of Lake Silver, a Sino Land development in Wu Kai Sha, did not alert buyers to the reality that sea views from some flats were blocked by another development.
Under the guidelines, promotional materials should be separated from sales brochures, with artists' impressions prohibited in the latter. Developers can include a one-page close-up picture showing the outer appearance or building elevation of developments, but it should be endorsed by the appointed architect.