Owner of luxury flat sues tycoon over unpaid rent
The owner of a luxury Mid-Levels flat is suing the son of a tycoon to pay his overdue rent and get out of the HK$99,000-per-month unit.
In its claim filed in the Court of First Instance on Monday, Kwong Wan Realty asked for HK$345,766 in overdue rent and other charges from Rogerio Lam Sou-fung, the son of the late Lam Bing-yam, founder of Hang Seng Bank.
The company said Lam had signed a tenancy agreement on May 31, to rent a 27th-floor flat at Bamboo Grove for two years, at a rent of HK$99,000 per month. But he has not paid the rent from August to October, it said.
“In wrongful breach of the agreement, the defendant has failed to pay the rent, the management fees and the rates and other charges in respect of the premises payable thereunder to the plaintiff,” Kwong Wan wrote in the court filing.
The company, a subsidiary of the developer Hysan, is also asking for “vacant possession” of the flat.
This is not the only recent legal proceeding involving Lam.
Last month, he sued auction house Sotheby’s for HK$8.9 million in proceeds from sales of antiques. The High Court earlier found that his long-term legal adversary – Goerge Tan Soon-gin, the former head of the failed Carrian Group – had wrongfully sold the antiques at a Sotheby’s auction. Tan borrowed the antiques from Lam in 1982.
Meanwhile, Hang Fai Finance sued Lam last month for failing to make repayments on a HK$3 million loan he took out in May last year.
In February, Lam succeeded in getting Tan declared bankrupt after Tan failed to repay a debt of more than HK$60 million.
The two tycoons have been at loggerheads for more than 20 years.
Tan was jailed for three years in 1996 after he admitted conspiracy involving US$238 million in secret loans obtained by Carrian from the Malaysian-based Bank Bumiputra.
Lam was convicted in 2002 of a multimillion-dollar bank fraud. He was jailed for 20 months and barred from being a company director for five years.
