Mark 6 millionaire Jagpal Singh faces claim for years of missed rent

A lottery winner's luck ran out when he tried to claim squatters' rights on the flat he had lived in all his life - and he now faces a claim for more than a decade of back rent.

Jagpal Singh, who pocketed HK$44.3 million when he took a one-third share of the Mark Six's biggest ever rollover jackpot in 2011, applied to the District Court for adverse possession of the flat at Nation Street, North Point.

He said he had lived in the flat since he was born in 1977.

But his lawyer told the court yesterday that his client had decided to discontinue his claim. The lawyer gave no details of why he dropped the claim.

And counsel for the flat's owner, Yu King-chau, told the court Yu was seeking vacant possession of the home - and payment of the rent Singh had failed to cough up over the years.

According to a writ filed in December 2011 - seven months after Singh hit the jackpot - Singh's parents had originally rented the flat from Yu's mother Kwong Mei-heung, who died in 1981.