HA CHI KUEN v. LAU BOND INTERNATIONAL LTD (formerly known as INSTECH INTERNATIONAL LTD)

DCMP 804/2025

[2026] HKDC 365

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO. 804 OF 2025

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DECISION

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Introduction

1.  By originating summons issued on 7 February 2025, the plaintiff applied for an order to remove the defendant’s attempted registration of a sealed copy of the Amended Writ of Summons issued in DCCJ 5030/2019 (“Amended Writ”) as a lis pendens at the Land Registry in relation to Shop T101 on the Third Floor, The Capital of the Retail Area, Park Hotel, Nos. 61-65 Chatnam Road South, Kowloon, Hong Kong (“Subject Property”).

2.  The plaintiff’s application was heard before me on 25 September 2025. At the conclusion of the hearing, I granted the plaintiff’s application (“Judgment”) and gave oral reasons for doing so. My full reasons were given in writing in a Reasons for Judgment handed down on 30 December 2025: see [2025] HKDC 2124 (“Reasons for Judgment”). In this decision, I shall adopt the abbreviations defined in the Reasons for Judgment.

3.  By Summons filed on 22 October 2025, the defendant applied for extension of time for leave to appeal from the Judgment. That application was supported by an Affirmation of Mr Lau filed on 22 October 2025. Despite the request for an extension of time, such an extension is in fact not required, as the defendant had 28 days from the date of the Judgment to file an application for leave to appeal (see Order 58 rule 2(4)(b)), and the defendant’s Summons was filed on the 27^th day after the date of the Judgment. There can be no dispute that the Judgment determined in a summary way the substantive rights of the parties to these proceedings, and hence is not an interlocutory order: see Order 58 rule 4(1)(a). Upon clarification made at this hearing, the parties agreed with this position. Accordingly, I have treated this application as the defendant’s application for leave to appeal from the Judgment.

Relevant principles

4.  Section 63A(2) of the District Court Ordinance (Cap 336) provides that:-

“Leave to appeal shall not be granted unless the judge, the master or the Court of Appeal hearing the application for leave is satisfied that—

(a) the appeal has a reasonable prospect of success; or

(b) there is some other reason in the interests of justice why the appeal should be heard.”

5.  A “reasonable prospect of success” means the prospects of succeeding on appeal must be more than “fanciful”, but without having to be “probable”: SMSE v KL [2009] 4 HKLRD 125 per Le Pichon JA at §17.

6.  On “some other reason in the interests of justice why the appeal should be heard”, guidance may be sought from HKCP (2026) Vol 1 where the learned editors suggested, at §59/2A/4, that leave may be granted on this limb:-

“… if the question is one of general principle, decided for the first time; or a question of importance upon which further argument and a decision of the Court of Appeal would be to the public advantage.”

Analysis

7.  I need not repeat the background facts to this matter which have been sufficiently set out in §§3 to 7 of the Reasons for Judgment.

8.  The defendant did not lodge any skeleton arguments in support of its application, despite the Court’s directions dated 5 January 2026.

9.  At the hearing, after several rounds of exchanges with the bench, Mr Lau confirmed that the defendant’s only intended ground of appeal is that I wrongly treated the Amended Writ as having been registered at the Land Registry when the registration had remained “pending”. Hence, Mr Lau argued, I had no basis to order the removal of the registration of the Amended Writ as a lis pendens.

10.  This is a new point not taken before me at the 25 September 2026 hearing. But be that as it may, the defendant’s intended ground of appeal is misconceived in any event.

11.  As stated in §20 of the Reasons for Judgment, I did not lose sight of the fact that the registration of the Amended Writ at the Land Registry was pending. In fact, the order I made as stated in §20(3) of the Reasons for Judgment explicitly states “[t]he attempted registration of the Amended Writ be cancelled and forthwith removed from the land register of the Property at the Land Registry, including any references to it as a “deed pending registration” (emphasis added).

12.  Mr Lau’s suggestion that the Court has no power to order the removal of a deed pending registration is also unfounded. This was what was done by Recorder Stewart Wong SC in Hundred Gain International Holding Limited [2023] HKCFI 2705 where he ordered the removal of an attempted registration of a writ from the pending section of the register, pursuant to the Court’s inherent jurisdiction. Mr Lau has cited no authority to contradict that legal position which in my view is plainly correct. Upon considering Hundred Gain, Mr Lau subsequently conceded that the Court does have the power to order the removal of a writ pending registration as a lis pendens.

13.  At the hearing, Mr Lau accepted that LB’s claim in DCCJ 5030/2019 was a pure monetary dispute arising out of the TA. He maintained that he was entitled to apply for registration of the Amended Writ as a lis pendens to prevent the registered owner from selling or transferring the Subject Property, or to apply for a charging order. However, he was unable to explain this alleged entitlement to register the Amended Writ before judgment is obtained in LB’s favour. Nor is he able to rebut the plaintiff’s submission that the registered owner of the Subject Property (i.e. Kuen) is not even a party to DCCJ 5030/2019.

14.  In my view, none of the proposed grounds relied upon by Mr Lau gives the defendant’s proposed appeal any prospect of success.

15.  As a matter of law, whether a writ of summons may be registered as a lis pendens depends not on the merits in the underlying dispute. That is a matter for trial in the underlying action. Instead, as the relevant authorities make clear, which I cited at paragraphs 13-15 of the Reasons for Judgment, what matters is whether or not the underlying claim affects the land itself, or seeks relief requiring something done on the land which is capable of binding the subsequent purchaser or mortgagee of the land.

16.  As I explained in §§16 to 18 of the Reasons for Judgment, LB’s case in DCCJ 5030/2019 does not claim any right, proprietary right or seek to charge the Subject Property. On the contrary, LB seeks to rescind the TA or to have it declared null and void and seeks purely monetary relief.  LB’s claim does not seek anything to be done with or at the Subject Property, nor does it seek to bind any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee of it. As a matter of fact – which I was told at the hearing – LB has discontinued its claim against Chau, Own Image (i.e., the other party to the TA) and Choi in DCCJ 5030/2019.

17.  For all these reasons, I hold that the defendant has plainly failed to demonstrate any prospects of success in the proposed appeal.

18.  Nor do I think that there is any reason in the interests of justice why the appeal should be heard. The legal principles underpinning my decision in the Judgment are trite. It was only a matter of their application to the present facts that led to my initial decision. I see no public advantage for the Court of Appeal to reconsider the matter.

19.  I therefore order that the defendant’s application be dismissed with costs.

20.  After having considered the plaintiff’s summary statement of costs and Mr Lau’s submissions, I order that the defendant pays the plaintiff’s costs of this application summarily assessed in the amount of HKD 20,000.