New flats leak for years with no fix, as developer warranties tilt the wrong way

An owner who bought a new flat in Tuen Mun for over HK$20 million found it still leaking years later; after repeatedly taking it up with the developer and contractor, they only got a partial response after bringing in an independent building inspector and posting video publicly on social media. Local owners report that getting a developer to formally address new-build quality problems (leaks, seepage, failed waterproofing, curtain-wall ingress) faces a very high bar — some developers fob owners off with surface patch-ups like 'waterproof coating' or 'window-frame sealant injection', and owners have no authoritative body to provide structural, root-cause advice.

The terms in Hong Kong's new-flat sale-and-purchase agreements on warranty scope, defect-handling and third-party arbitration are skewed to protect developers' interests; meanwhile building inspectors, waterproofing engineers and legal advice are scattered across small firms, with no integrated buyer-rights platform to help owners stand up to developers. For middle-class families who trade their entire savings for a new flat, resolving a quality dispute routinely takes years and relies heavily on media exposure and online pressure; at the policy level, developers' defect liability, the boundaries of insurance payouts, and room for consumer class action have long gone without any measurable update.