bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Patsy Moy

Some homebuyers have forked out as much as HK$980,000 for bay windows after developers built flats using pre-cast structures that increased the saleable area, a watchdog says. 
In one case, the bay window accounted for a quarter of the size of a 60 sq ft bedroom, Green Sense president Roy Tam Hoi-pong said.
Tam said that over the past three years, more developers had used pre-cast structures to build flats with bay windows. 
Using the pre-cast model results in thicker walls and  structure. 
Tam said developers  classified the extra area created by the thicker bay window structure as saleable area instead of  part of the bay window. 
For the past 30 years government policy has stipulated that a bay window should project no more than 50cm from the face of an external wall to qualify as part of a site's gross floor area. But the pre-cast structures could boost the depth of the window to as much as 80cm, Tam said.
Tam said one of the latest building projects in North Point had used the this method to charge buyers as much as HK$980,000 for bay windows for a 1,200 sq ft flat. 
'In this extreme case, the flat-buyers have been forced to pay almost HK$1 million for the bay window area which they can't use at all,' he said.
The organisation cited four similar building projects where the Urban Renewal Authority was one of the major developers involved. The authority insisted its building design fully complied with government policy and guidelines.
Green Sense said the government should scrap the gross floor area allowance for bay windows. 
'The size of bay windows is getting bigger and bigger nowadays so that more flat owners need to put their beds in the bay windows in order to save space,' he said.
Consumer Council chief executive Connie Lau Yin-hing  added her voice to concerns about pre-cast structures, saying all such information should be clearly disclosed in the floor plan and sales brochures.  Lau called on the government to standardise the calculation of gross floor area to help minimise ambiguities for homebuyers.



Watchdog alerts homebuyers to hidden cost of bay windows