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Following is a question by the Hon James To and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Ms Eva CHENG, in the Legislative Council today (January 16):
Question
A member of the public has approached me for assistance, saying that he had suffered losses earlier due to the bursting of communal flushing water pipes in his public rental housing ("PRH") unit. When he claimed compensation from the Hong Kong Housing Authority ("HA"), the HA's representative indicated that under clause IV(4) of the Tenancy Agreement for his PRH unit, "the landlord shall not be under any liability whatsoever to the Tenant or any member of the Tenant's family or any servant or licensee of his in respect of any damage sustained to the person or property of the Tenant or such other person caused by or through or in any way due to the overflow of water or drainage from any part of the building of which the said flat forms part." Therefore, "HA does not have any contractual liabilities in the incident". In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of tenants' claims received by HA in the past three years and the relevant amount of claims, broken down by the nature of the cases (including losses arising from the bursting of flushing water pipes, fire and Police investigation, etc.) and age of the PRH building concerned (less than 10 years, 10 to 20 years, 21 to 30 years and 31 years or above);
(b) among the cases in (a), whether HA had accepted the claims concerned and awarded compensation; if it had, of the number of such cases and the ultimate amount of compensation awarded in each case; and whether the tenants concerned had lodged appeals against HA's decisions; if they had, of the number of appeals and among them, the number of those allowed; and
(c) apart from the above clause, whether there are other similar exemption clauses in HA's Tenancy Agreements or the laws of Hong Kong?
Reply
Madam President,
My reply to the three-part question is as follows:
(a) The number of claims for compensation lodged with the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) in respect of the properties under its management over the past three years is as follows:
(i) Breakdown by nature of accidents
2006/07 2005/06 2004/05
Choked drainage 40 70 51
Crime 4 6 13
Lift failure/incident 10 7 4
Objects dropped from
a height 7 7 1
Fire 8 10 8
Burst pipes 64 80 59
Maintenance and repair
related incident 27 32 80
Typhoon/Storm 0 3 5
Slippery floor/Tripping 24 56 50
Water leaking/dripping 32 61 42
Power Blackout/Water
supply interruption 2 7 8
Others 91 14 23
Total 309 353 344
(ii) Breakdown by age of flats
Age 2006/07 2005/06 2004/05
below 10 years 89 78 63
10-20 years 86 88 108
20-30 years 86 142 130
above 30 years 48 45 43
Total 309 353 344
The amount of the claims ranges from two thousand to several hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars.
(b) The HA has taken out public liability insurance to provide protection for the HA and its staff against legal liabilities and consequential compensation arising from operation-related negligence that results in bodily injury or property damage to members of the public. The HA has also required its services and works contractors to take out public liability insurance.
All claims against the HA are referred to the independent loss adjuster of the HA's insurance company for follow-up investigation. The loss adjuster would discuss with the claimant issues such as who should be held liable and the compensation amount. Generally speaking, in addition to examining the relevant clauses of the tenancy agreement, the loss adjuster would also consider if the HA has been negligent and should be held responsible for the incident. If eventually the claimant and the loss adjuster fail to reach an agreement on the liabilities or amount of compensation, the claimant may seek compensation from the HA under the civil claims procedure. This practice is in line with the normal practice of handling claims in respect of public liability in the insurance market. The HA itself has not established any appeal mechanism specifically for such claims.
The relevant figures of the compensation claims lodged with the HA in the past three years are as follows:
2004-05 2005-06 2006-07
Number of
closed cases
where
compensation
is required 7 5 26
Number of
closed cases
where
compensation
is not
required 299 119 6
Amount of
compensation
awarded or
earmarked for
award $1,494,000 $3,446,000 $2,717,978
The HA will also render other assistance to the claimants as far as possible. For example, if the claimant's flat is damaged in an accident, the HA will arrange flat transfer. Moreover, HA will require the loss adjuster to remind the claimant to consider claiming compensation from a HA's contractor if the loss adjuster's investigation reveals that the contractor may be involved in the case. If the investigation so reveals, the HA will also remind the claimant to consider seeking compensation from the contractor concerned and ask the contractor to contact the claimant to facilitate the claimant's follow-up.
(c) The tenancy agreement for HA public rental housing flats contains two exemption clauses, namely Clause IV (4) (concerning cases of bodily injury or property damage to the tenant or his family due to overflow of water or sewage) and Clause IV(5) (concerning compensation claims lodged with the tenant or his family members arising from the HA's execution of the terms of the tenancy agreements). The Housing Ordinance does not have similar provisions.
Ends/Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Issued at HKT 12:56
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