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The Lands Department announced today (March 19) that two residential sites in the 2012-13 Land Sale Programme will be disposed of by public tender and the "Hong Kong Property for Hong Kong People" (HKPHKP) measure will be applied.
The two sites are New Kowloon Inland Lot No. 6516 on Site 1H1 and New Kowloon Inland Lot No. 6517 on Site 1H2 in Kai Tak, Kowloon. The tender invitation for both lots will commence on March 28 and close on May 31.
New Kowloon Inland Lot No. 6516 has a site area of about 7 771 square metres and is designated for non-industrial (excluding office, godown, hotel and petrol filling station) purposes. The minimum gross floor area and the maximum gross floor area are 23 313 sq m and 38 855 sq m respectively, of which not exceeding 38 077 sq m are for private residential purposes. The total number of residential units to be built shall not be less than 545.
New Kowloon Inland Lot No. 6517 has a site area of about 8 585 sq m and is designated for non-industrial (excluding office, godown, hotel and petrol filling station) purposes. The minimum gross floor area and the maximum gross floor area are 25 755 sq m and 42 925 sq m respectively, of which not exceeding 42 066 sq m are for private residential purposes. The total number of residential units to be built shall not be less than 600.
The final Conditions of Sale for both lots will be available for distribution to the public and uploaded to the Lands Department's website (www.landsd.gov.hk) by March 28, when the particulars of the tender will also be gazetted.
The objective of the HKPHKP measure is to give priority to Hong Kong Permanent Residents (HKPRs) when using scarce land resources for residential development. The sale of the two residential sites is subject to this measure and the flats to be built on them can only be sold to HKPRs, as announced by the Government last September.
Under the measure, the leases for the two sites will specify that purchasers (the developer and each subsequent owner) will have to apply for prior written consent of the Director of Lands before alienation of the residential units built thereon throughout a 30-year period commencing from the date of the relevant land grants.
The major features of the consent are as follows:
* flat sale only to HKPRs who are holders of a valid Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card;
* in case of flat sale to joint purchasers comprising HKPR(s) and non-HKPR(s), the purchasers must be close relatives, i.e. parents, spouse, child, brothers and sisters of each other;
* flat sale to corporations or companies would not be allowed;
* to avoid transfer of the properties to non-HKPRs through a credit default, mortgages, where required, have to be entered with specified institutions, including authorised institutions within the meaning of Section 2 of the Banking Ordinance, the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited, mortgage insurance companies partnering with authorised institutions and The Financial Secretary Incorporated;
* underletting by the developers would not be allowed, to ensure that the residential flats would be put to the market for sale;
* underletting by individual owners would be allowed (without any restrictions on the background of the tenants, who may be a HKPR, a non-HKPR or a company), but the term of each tenancy shall not exceed five years in the aggregate including any right of renewal and no premium, fine, key money or similar payment shall be paid by the tenant. This is to avoid abusive transfer of the residential flats to non-HKPRs through long leases.
Bearing in mind the need to minimise any disruption to normal day-to-day conveyancing and to keep the process simple, the onus would be on the purchasers to provide truthful information. To this end, the purchaser who is a HKPR and a non-HKPR co-purchaser, if any, would be required to make a statutory declaration on their HKPR status and the close relative-relation respectively.
There may be special circumstances whereby there is a genuine need for a residential flat subject to the HKPHKP measure to be held by non-HKPRs. Application for consent under such special circumstances would be considered case by case, but generally consent for a transfer to a non-HKPR would be considered upon production of supporting documents in the case of an assent to lawful beneficiary owing to the death of an owner and for an assignment to a spouse pursuant to a court order owing to divorce or separation. A non-HKPR owner holding the property after obtaining the due consent is subject to the same HKPHKP measure when he or she alienates the property within the 30-year period.
There will not be any restriction on whether residential flats subject to the HKPHKP measure are used for self-occupation or otherwise.
The application for, and the giving of, consent can be incorporated into the normal conveyancing process. To this end, the Lands Department has started discussions with various conveyancing parties on the implementation details. As actual alienation of flats subject to the HKPHKP measure will only commence in a few years' time when the developer may be in a position to sell the uncompleted residential units after obtaining the required consent, the implementation details would in due course be fine-tuned as appropriate.
Ends/Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Issued at HKT 17:12
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