The Consumer Council on Tuesday sounded a wake-up-call to prospective Hong Kong home buyers - the law does not provide sufficient protection against a host of common market malpractices.

"Much to our disappointment, such deep-rooted practices as aggressive tactics, market manipulation, exaggerated claims and misinformation that have plagued the market in the past have somehow persisted," said council chairman Wong Yuk-Shan.

The council's study is based on survey of 602 Hong Kong people, three focus group meetings, and field visits to 17 residential property projects, including some undertaken by the city's largest developers.

Among all the problems identified by the survey, the practice of making loans to prospective buyers to cover the fees of submitting applications for new apartments on sale to jack up perceived demand is seen to have raised the most public concern.

In some cases, the number of applications was inflated by as much as 20 times, according to the poll.

The ploy is intended to give prospective buyers the false impression that they are going to miss the chance if they don't buy now. About 18.6 percent of the respondents said they were forced to make the "buy" decision instantly.

Property developers surveyed said that seven out of 17 projects' price lists met the minimum requirement on the number of units to be sold. But not all the listed units were actually available to buyers. They were included to give buyers the impression that the apartments were selling out fast. In other regions, such as the UK and Singapore, the "cooling-off period", which allows purchasers to reconsider transactions, is usually much longer than that in Hong Kong.

The survey also showed that 45 percent of the respondents regarded Hong Kong's five-day "cooling off" period as insufficient, while 33 percent said the forfeiture which amounts to 5 percent of the purchase price was unreasonable.

The council said it has submitted eight recommendations to the government, the regulators and the industry to improve the regulations on property sales as well as the role of the regulators.

agnes@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 11/12/2014 page8)