A woman who thought she was buying a HK$5 million ground-floor shop in Kowloon City turned out to have paid for only an external wall suspected of being an illegal structure.
Christina Tse, 62 (pictured), is trying to reclaim her HK$300,000 deposit but the seller, a privately registered company called Well Partner Limited, has refused to refund her and insists on going ahead with the transaction.
'The real estate agent called it a shop, and I saw it as one. I was tricked,' Tse said.
Well Partner bought the wall at Genius Court in Fuk Lo Tsun Road, for HK$1 million in October. It then constructed a small space adjoining the wall, which is now being leased to a property company, despite warnings from Genius Court's management company that the space was public and did not belong to the estate.
Well Partner could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The space was originally a loading zone next to an entrance to a car park, separated from the footpath by a wall, which was knocked down and rebuilt as the tiny shop now occupied by the property broker.
Tse found she had bought only a wall adjoining the broker's office when she contacted Genius Court's management company.
