Agents selling foreign properties should be licensed: Consumer Council

Agents selling foreign properties should be licensed, the Consumer Council said after having received 106 such complaints in the first eight months this year.

The number is more than double of the average of 39 cases per year between 2017 and 2020. On average victims have each lost HK$360,000.

Some 60 percent involved unlicensed agents who had told home buyers inaccurate and misleading information, or had failed to provide key information about the foreign properties. Some of them had also made refund of deposits difficult.

The watchdog said among 261 cases from 2017 to August this year, 93 percent of the transactions were made in Hong Kong.

The watchdog had sent undercover customers to look at 36 foreign properties sold in Hong Kong by 19 agencies, among which 15 were unlicenced.

Some unlicensed agents gave outdated or even false information. The undercover clients twice saw agents who only provided Japanese pamphlets on the properties, who claimed they did not know Japanese but still promoted the properties by “guessing” what the leaflets wrote.

The watchdog urged authorities to regulate Hong Kong agents selling foreign properties and to only allow licenced ones to engage in such transactions. 

It added some property advertisements were incomplete and inaccurate, and some sales advertisements exaggerate investment returns or have ambiguous disclaimers.