Anticipating that the appeal will move forward, Housing Authority officials said there is very little chance the HK$32 billion listing will push through this year.

It will take at least three months to put the deal back together, they said. With an appeal now almost certain, deputy director of housing Kenneth Mak said the chance of the Link REIT listing by the middle of 2005 is small.

Assistant director of housing Lam Lit-kwan, who is responsible for privatization, said getting the deal to market now depends on the court's timetable. She is "not optimistic'' it will happen this year.

District council member Andrew To, who helped Lo lodge her judicial review last December seeking to block the Housing Authority from selling the assets on which the Link REIT trust is based, said: ``The decision means we have legal grounds to bring the case to the Court of Final Appeal.

``This overturned the decision made by the Legal Aid Department, which believed the case did not have merit.''

Lo had been waiting for legal aid to be awarded before filing her final appeal, To said. Now the case will go into its next phase. ``We are certain Lo will make the appeal,'' he said.

The derailing of the Link REIT public offering last December came despite Lo losing the first two rounds of the legal battle because underwriters could not face the uncertainty posed by the final appeal process.

Efforts by the government to speed up the appeals process were rebuffed by the court last year, leaving the widely anticipated offering in limbo and the government with another embarrassing failure on its hands.

A three-member legal aid committee of review chaired by High Court registrar Christopher Chan ordered the Legal Aid Department to provide assistance to Lo for her application to the Court of Final Appeal within seven days after the Easter Holiday.

Lo began her legal action last December to stop the listing of the Link REIT on the grounds that it will be harmful to the interests of public housing tenants.

The planned listing came off the table less than 24 hours before trading was to begin on December 20.

On January 3, Lo applied for legal aid, but the Legal Aid Department turned her down.

Lo appealed that decision, and the Court of Final Appeal agreed to extend the deadline for an appeal for seven days after its judgment.

The Housing Authority had hoped to spin off its retail shopping malls and car parks under the Link REIT by mid-2005 following the December debacle.

Officials Thursday offered no timetable for the listing in light of Lo's appeal.

Lam said Housing Authority staff are inspecting the properties for a possible re-appraisal once the listing is cleared to proceed.

If Lo takes the case to the Court of Final Appeal, Lam noted, both sides would have 35 days to submit documents to the judges, and then another 40 days to submit additional information to the court before the hearing.

Lam said the court has a busy calendar of cases and she is worried that the Link REIT appeal will be postponed due to other matters.

She said a possible judicial review against the government's amendment of the Chief Executive Election Ordinance, for example, may take precedence over Lo's case.

The Housing Authority had expected to reap billions of dollars from the listing for the next financial year, but its forecasts have now been thrown into disarray.

Mak said the other issue now facing the authority is the outcome of a suit by public housing tenants demanding rent cuts. The tenants won their case in the Court of First Instance, but lost in the Court of Appeal. The case is now pending a hearing at the Court of Final Appeal. He said the authority's financial position would be fine if the court did not order it to cut domestic rents, even if it could not spin off the shopping malls and car parks.

The Link REIT is costing the authority about HK$12 million a month, including about HK$10 million in staff costs.

dennis.ng@singtaonewscorp.com