Lawmakers flag gaps in proposed changes to building management rules after Tai Po fire

KUALA LUMPUR, 13 AUGUST 2026 —

Hong Kong lawmakers have warned of potential loopholes that bid-riggers can still exploit despite a government proposal to tighten proxy votes, owner attendance at renovation meetings and other oversight issues in its review of building maintenance rules after the Tai Po fire. Their warnings on Thursday coincided with the announcement of a second round of raids by the Competition Commission pertaining to a bid-rigging case involving 28 estates and contracts valued at around HK$500 million (US$63.7 million). The government has stepped up enforcement against problematic contractors and strengthened building maintenance procedures since the catastrophic blaze at Wang Fuk Court that killed 168 people last November. Authorities began a month-long consultation on Wednesday focused on five major amendments under the Buildings Management Ordinance. “The overall direction is correct and has responded to residents’ concerns, but the key point is how to bolster building management protections for individual owners to avoid management problems, while balancing the fact that not many owners can attend the meeting for general matters,” lawmaker Bill Tang Ka-piu told a radio programme on Thursday. Issues of building management and owner governance came under intense scrutiny during an independent committee hearing on the cause of the fire, with testimonies revealing alleged bid-rigging and suspicions over proxy vote collection. In a consultation document released on Tuesday, authorities laid out five major directions for proposed amendments to the Buildings Management Ordinance, which regulates incorporated ownership in buildings. The five suggestions covered imposing a higher attendance requirement and voting thresholds for decisions about large-scale and high-value maintenance procurement; improving the system for proxy votes; optimising the system for declaration of interests; strengthening authorities’ powers; and clarifying meeting procedures. The review of votes called for introducing a ceiling on the number of proxies that a person can hold. In buildings with 50 flats or fewer, a person may only hold one proxy, whereas in buildings with more than 50 flats, a person may be allowed to hold 20 proxies - or less than two per cent of the total number of flats. Tang said he was concerned about whether the new proxy vote regulations would also cover other issues, apart from large-scale maintenance projects. “There are [other] issues in the community that have gained much attention, such as switching management companies and incorporated owners’ elections,” he said. According to Tang, authorities should also consider the relationship between owners and their proxies, and whether owners could authorise individuals other than their family members or other owners to vote on issues that were not related to large-scale maintenance. Under the government’s proposal, in order to raise attendance requirements at incorporated owners meetings, a new three-tier system for forming a quorum and in-person voting thresholds will be introduced. Ten per cent of owners would need to attend the meeting with at least 5 per cent or 100 owners voting in person for projects worth HK$30,000 per flat in procurement value. For projects worth HK$80,000 per flat, 15 per cent of owners would need to attend the meeting, with at least eight per cent or 150 owners voting in person. For projects worth over HK$120,000 per flat, 20 per cent of owners would need to attend the meeting while 10 per cent or 200 owners would need to vote in person. Tang agreed to the addition of the two higher tiers for the proposed quorum and voting rules, but said more discussion was needed to determine if more tiers were necessary and whether the tiers were suitable for middle-class housing estates with lower density. He said dividing quorum and voting requirements by price could potentially be exploited for bid-rigging, creating a loophole that allowed corrupt contractors to push down project prices or divide works to fit a lower threshold. “If some contractors deliberately divide the project and suppress the price during the procurement stage, and then change the engineering works and demand that additional steps be taken later, wouldn’t that be evading the new rules?” Tang said. In a separate segment on the programme, lawmaker Chris Ip Ngo-tung said authorities would need to implement rules to verify proxies and prevent bid-rigging syndicates from using false instruments to obtain votes. Ip supported the proposed amendment to restrict proxies to owners’ family members or fellow owners, but raised concerns about whether limiting the number of proxies would affect voting processes in old buildings. “Some owners may trust the incorporated owners’ chairman or secretary. Some owners could also have their ways to secure proxies. Limiting how many proxies a person can hold cannot solve the problem,” he said. Ip added that a relationship restriction for proxies could be hard to implement, as some elderly owners may not have available relatives who could vote on their behalf. On Thursday, the Competition Commission also announced that it had raided 12 premises in its second round of enforcement actions related to a bid-rigging case that began in January. The case involved maintenance projects in 28 housing estates across 12 districts and buildings with contracts estimated to have a total value of HK$500 million. During the first round of enforcement, the commission unearthed a series of suspicious text messages exposing another hidden bid-rigging syndicate. Upon further investigation, the contractor was found to have engaged in anti-competitive practices in multiple maintenance projects, including disseminating instructions on bidding prices for the purpose of manipulating tender results. (AI-assisted rewrite, based on the original source)