XCHRX KEEP POINT DEVELOPMENT LTD. v. CHENG CHAU YIN ANN

HCA 4734/99

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

ACTION NO. 4734 OF 1999

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(Heard together)

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J U D G M E N T

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1. This is an application for summary judgment in 14 actions. The Plaintiff is the same in all 14 actions.

2. The Plaintiff is the owner of a property which was under development. In 1996, a company by the name of Full Country assigned the property to the Plaintiff. Sometime in 1998, a person by the name of Cheng Kwok Fai purportedly acted for the Plaintiff in signing agreements for the sale and purchase of uncompleted units in the property to a number of persons including the 14 defendants in these actions. Messrs. Ho & Chan, Solicitors purported to act as the Plaintiff's solicitors and to accept the deposits as stakeholders.

3. However, it is clear from the evidence now that Cheng Kwok Fai was never authorized by the Plaintiff to execute these agreements on its behalf and Messrs. Ho & Chan were never appointed the Plaintiff's solicitors for those purposes.

4. Hence, these applications for summary judgment on the part of the Plaintiff for various declaratory relief. Although some of the parties had purported to sign consent summonses in relation to these applications, by reason of the fact that declaratory relief was being sought, the Court did not accept the consent summonses, and I have therefore looked into the evidence in question.

5. At one point, I was concerned about the fact that in a statutory declaration by Mr. Chan Kwok Yim, a solicitor of Messrs. Ho & Chan, he made reference to a number of documents which could only have been in the control of the Plaintiff as the owner of the property, and therefore, I was concerned about any possible point of holding out on the part of the Plaintiff of Ho & Chan as its solicitors. However, a subsequent affirmation which has since been filed reveals the process whereby Ho & Chan could have obtained these documents, and they were not for the purpose of the present agreements or anything to do with the present agreements.

6. In the premises, I would declare that the 14 agreements in question purportedly made between the Plaintiff of the one part and the Defendants as purchasers of the other part are not binding on the Plaintiff and are, as against the Plaintiff, absolutely null and void and I would declare that the Defendants are not entitled to register the agreements in the Land Registry. Of the 14 agreements in question, some have been registered in the Land Registry, some are "pending registration" and some have not been submitted for registration at all.

7. I would further declare that the Defendants be restrained, whether by themselves their servants agents or solicitors or any of them or otherwise howsoever, from registering or causing to be registered the agreements in question in the Land Registry, and in relation to those agreements where they have already been registered, namely in actions No. 4736 of 1999, 4739 of 1999, 4741 of 1999 and 4745 of 1999, I would order that the registration be vacated. The Plaintiff is not seeking in this summons damages or costs. Accordingly, there will be no order as to costs.