Wang Fuk Court buyback: 93.2 percent of owners sign. About 135 units are still outside the deal

Nearly all Wang Fuk Court owners have signed contracts to sell their fire-hit flats to the government. About 135 units missed the October 15 deadline, and officials say only that they may make case-by-case arrangements.

The Housing Bureau said on October 16 that 1,850 owners across all eight Wang Fuk Court blocks signed sale contracts before the October 15 deadline, 93.2 percent of units under the Wang Fuk Court buyback.

The bureau’s statement did not give the number of unsigned flats. Working back from its own figures, 1,850 units at 93.2 percent implies, assuming the rounded figure is exact, an estate of roughly 1,985 units, leaving about 135 unsigned; the local outlet Dimsum Daily put the figure at 134. The government has not said whether the deadline will be reopened, only that it “may consider making appropriate arrangements on a case-by-case basis at the Government’s discretion.”

What the Wang Fuk Court buyback covers

The fire that started at the estate on November 26, 2025 killed 168 people, the deadliest blaze in Hong Kong in decades, according to the Associated Press. The government announced its long-term housing plan on February 21, 2026. It offered to buy owners’ titles at HK$8,000 per square foot of saleable area for flats whose land premium was unpaid at the time of the announcement and HK$10,500 for flats with the premium paid, one uniform rate for every unit.

The Standard reported on February 21 that the acquisition would cost about HK$6.8 billion, of which HK$4 billion would come from public funds. Owners who sell can buy reserved flats from the Housing Authority and the Housing Society under a special sales exercise, or take a “flat-for-flat” swap. The purchases are made through Wang Fuk Court Property Rights Acquisition Limited, a company wholly owned by the government through the Financial Secretary Incorporated, according to the Housing Bureau.

The original plan covered Blocks A to G. Wang Chi House was offered the same terms only if at least three-quarters of its owners signed letters of acceptance by June 30. On June 26 the bureau said 77.8 percent, or 193 households, had done so, and the plan was extended to that block. The October 16 figure covers all eight buildings, Blocks A to G and Wang Chi House, according to the Housing Bureau.

Why some owners have not signed

The bureau listed the reasons some owners missed the deadline: titles that need more time to clarify because of probate, bankruptcy or ownership disputes; owners who are mentally incapacitated; and owners who are outside Hong Kong. It said “similar special circumstances are also encountered in private market transactions.” The bureau did not break the unsigned units down by reason, and it did not say whether any owners had simply refused the offer.

That last gap matters. Whether any of the roughly 135 outstanding units belong to owners who declined the price, as opposed to estates waiting on a probate grant or owners overseas, is not stated in any official release. The bureau’s promise to weigh cases “while balancing empathy, reason and law, with priority given to empathy” sets a tone, not a rule.

The bureau said it would continue the assignment procedures “at full speed” to complete the transfer of titles. It gave no completion date, and it did not say what the government intends to do with the land once it holds the titles.

The inquiry and the criminal cases

The property deal is moving faster than the account of what went wrong. The Independent Committee set up by the Chief Executive on December 12, 2025 held 30 days of evidential hearings between March 19 and July 17, heard 80 witnesses, and had its reporting deadline extended to the end of October 2026. Its report is therefore due within about two weeks of the signing deadline.

Criminal matters run separately, and the committee has said legal liability falls outside its remit. In June the police and the Independent Commission Against Corruption charged seven individuals and two companies with 25 offences, including manslaughter. On September 9 the Buildings Department laid 259 charges against four persons and two companies over repair works at the estate. All of these are allegations before the courts, and none has been proven.

Analysis: what the numbers do and do not show

A 93.2 percent signing rate is high, and the uniform price left little room for flat-by-flat haggling. But the headline rate measures contracts signed, not titles transferred or families rehoused, and the government has published no figures for either. The residual group is small in percentage terms and large in human ones, since each of those units represents a household that lost a home in the same fire.

Three questions remain open: how the government will treat units that stay unsigned, when titles will actually change hands, and what the Independent Committee will say when it reports at the end of the month. The first answer is now at the government’s discretion. The last is due in about two weeks.