{"id":494710,"date":"2026-02-21T13:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T13:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/494710\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T13:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T13:09:08","slug":"hong-kong-offers-buy-out-scheme-for-owners-who-lost-homes-in-last-years-deadly-apartment-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/494710\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong offers buy-out scheme for owners who lost homes in last year’s deadly apartment fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong authorities have announced a buy-out offer for owners who lost their homes in last year’s deadly housing complex fire, rather than rebuilding the charred apartment blocks as some residents had hoped.<\/p>\n

The blaze, the world’s deadliest residential building fire since 1980, killed 168 people and left thousands homeless in November at Wang Fuk Court, a high-rise apartment complex in northern Hong Kong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Displaced residents have urged the government to come up with resettlement options, with some expressing hopes for the estate to be rebuilt.<\/p>\n

‘Unprecedented’ disaster<\/p>\n

Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong said Hong Kong authorities will spend up to $HK6.8 billion ($1.2 billion) to acquire property titles from flat owners, either in cash or as part of a flat swap.<\/p>\n

“The scale of the disaster is unprecedented, and currently there is no effective market mechanism to assist affected households,” Mr Wong said.<\/p>\n

Just over 1,700 owners would receive an offer of between $HK441,000 to $HK650,000, depending on their flat’s size.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong fire killed 168 people in total, authorities confirm<\/a><\/p>\n

The final death toll is seven higher than previously reported and comes months after the fire tore through the apartment complex.<\/p>\n

Mr Wong said the fire was a “special case of an exceptional nature” that warranted government intervention to avoid the flats becoming worthless.<\/p>\n

He said it was “not appropriate” to rebuild the complex because it would take at least nine years and instead would be torn down to build a park or other community facilities on the site.<\/p>\n

Seven of the estate’s eight towers suffered “irreversible” internal damage in the fire, while one building was left largely unscathed.<\/p>\n

Only nine per cent of flat owners surveyed insisted on redevelopment on the same site as the only option, Mr Wong added.<\/p>\n

The buybacks will use an estimated $HK510 million in taxpayer money, with the rest coming from a relief fund.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong authorities have announced a buy-out offer for owners who lost their homes in last year’s deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18527,64,63,99,249464,7770,10340,175953],"class_list":{"0":"post-494710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-apartments","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-buy-out-offer","13":"tag-fire","14":"tag-hong-kong","15":"tag-wang-fuk-court"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}