HK gov't passes letters to legislature over controversial luxury home sales
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The Lands Department of the Hong Kong government on Monday passed to the city's Legislative Council Secretariat all nine letters which the department had sent to Hong Kong's major developer Henderson Land over its luxurious home sales from March 18 to July 5, the city's government said.
Eight letters which had been sent from March 18 to June 30 were passed to the Legislative Council (LegCo) on July 5, it said.
At the request of the LegCo Secretariat, the city's government handed in photocopies of the stamped sale and purchase agreements for the 24 luxurious home transactions on July 9. They were registered with the Land Registry and are publicly accessible.
The Hong Kong government said it would also pass on a copy of the duplicate set of the correspondence exchange on the 24 transactions in chronological order and include all attachments.
The 24 controversial transactions all came from the 39 Conduit Road, a luxury residential property situated in Conduit Road in western mid-Levels of the Hong Kong Island.
The project and the 24 transactions had been the focus of local media attention since June after Henderson Land said most of the sales deals had fallen through.
Henderson said last month it had completed only four out of the 24 transactions in the 39 Conduit Road. The completed transactions didn't include the high-profile five-bedroom duplex, which the developed claimed it had sold last year at a world-record 88,000 HK dollars (11,317 U.S. dollars) per square foot of saleable area.
The transactions involving the remaining 20 units had been canceled by "mutual agreement" between the company and the respective purchasers after the developer received written requests from the purchasers, Henderson said.
As a result of the cancellations, the purchasers forfeited their deposits totaling 133.4 million HK dollars.
The city's government said on July 17 it was looking into and following up on the 24 transactions amid criticisms of deceptive marketing. (one U.S. dollar equals to 7.776 HK dollars)
