A petition launched by homeowners of the fire-hit Wang Fuk Court housing estate lacked authentication mechanisms and may contain forged signatures, the government has said following residents’ complaints.

The Home Affairs Department said on Thursday that it received complaints from several Wang Fuk Court residents, who criticised the petition for not verifying the identities of signatories.

“Individual flat owners said the so-called petition lacked authentication mechanisms and may involve people impersonating owners and forging signatures. Personal information collected is also at risk of being abused or misused without authorisation,” the department said in a Chinese-language emailed reply.

The department said it has referred the matter to law enforcement agencies for investigation.

Demand rejected

The petition, launched last month, called for a formal owners’ meeting with the government-appointed estate administrator, Hop On Management.

As of Wednesday, it had been signed by 428 Wang Fuk Court flat owners – down from the previous tally of 431 after invalid signatures were found, the petition’s organisers told HKFP.

Residents are seeking clarity on unresolved issues, including future accommodation, the disbursement of public donations and insurance claims, and the management of remaining funds for the estate’s renovation and maintenance.

Hong Kong’s Building Management Ordinance stipulates that a management committee must convene a general meeting at the written request of at least five per cent of owners. Wang Fuk Court has a total of 1,984 units, and 430 valid signatories would exceed the required threshold.

However, Hop On, a subsidiary of real estate giant Chinachem Group, rejected the demand. In an emailed reply on Sunday, Hop On told a signatory that the petition did not meet the statutory requirement and that it would not hold a formal owners’ meeting at this stage.

“Following a detailed review and consultation with legal counsel, we note that… you had gathered owners’ concerns via an online form, but provided no further information,” Hop On said in the email, which was seen by HKFP.

‘Update session’

However, the government-appointed administrator is set to hold an in-person “update session” in early May regarding financial matters such as compensation and refunds, according to a notice issued on Saturday.

Hop On said the session would not overlap with the ongoing public inquiry into the fire or the scheduled dates for residents to return home to collect personal belongings. Details of the session will be announced later, it said.

Wang Fuk Court residents will be allowed to return to their fire-ravaged flats between April 20 and May 4 to retrieve personal items, the government announced earlier.

The blaze in November killed 168 people and displaced thousands – the worst fire in Hong Kong since 1948.

Hop On was chosen by the government in January to take over as the “administrator” of the estate after the owners’ corporation board was dissolved by the Lands Tribunal.

A fire contractor that notified the government about deactivating Wang Fuk Court‘s fire safety systems did so despite never conducting inspections at the estate, the firm’s director has said.

Hearings into the deadly Tai Po blaze in November continued on Wednesday with testimony from Leung Ping-kay, a director of China Status Development and Engineering, one of the two fire safety contractors at the estate.

Leung appeared at City Gallery, where the hearings held by an independent committee tasked with investigating the fire are taking place. He answered questions from lawyers about his firm’s involvement in overseeing fire safety at Wang Fuk Court.

He said the company was tasked by Prestige Construction & Engineering, the main contractor for the large-scale renovation project at the estate, to apply to the Fire Services Department (FSD) to shut down the fire hydrant and hose reel system so that water tank maintenance could be carried out.

China Status applied for shutdown notices for Wang Fuk Court’s eight blocks between April and September last year, filing for a total of 85 extensions as each shutdown lasts a maximum of 14 days under FSD rules. Wang Tai House and Wang Chi House had 16 extensions each, while the other six blocks had between five and 13.

Leung signed off on the notices as one of the company’s directors.

When Senior Counsel Victor Dawes, the independent committee’s lead lawyer, likened their work procedure to a “rubber stamp,” Leung stayed quiet but appeared to agree.

He confirmed that neither he nor company personnel went to Wang Fuk Court to understand the proposed maintenance work or the necessity of disabling the fire hydrant and hose reel system.

Dawes pulled up conversations from a WhatsApp group that comprised Leung, his colleague Daisy, and a man from Prestige surnamed Cheung.

Dawes showed screenshots of the group, consisting mostly of files sent by Daisy of the shutdown applications and corresponding notices to be placed in buildings to inform residents about fire safety systems being disabled.

The lawyer pointed out that Leung never raised questions about the maintenance work or its progress.

When Dawes asked why, Leung said the group was “just for sending documents.”

Leung also said he did not know who was actually carrying out the water tank maintenance. He said Prestige may have sub-contracted workers from another firm, but that he never asked.

‘Responsibility’

The investigative hearings began in mid-March, with dates scheduled on almost every weekday until the end of April.

Prior to Leung’s testimony, representatives from other parties presented their evidence, including staff at Victory Fire, the other fire safety contractor hired by Prestige.

Workers from ISS EastPoint Properties – Wang Fuk Court’s estate management company – also testified, with an electrician saying that he turned off main switches in all eight buildings because he thought it was necessary ahead of water tank maintenance.

He said he was not aware that doing so would also deactivate fire alarms. That the alarms did not go off has been blamed as one of the reasons for the high death toll in the fire, which killed 168 people.

On Wednesday, Leung asked Dawes whether they would have turned the main switch back on if personnel from his company had noticed that it was off. Leung said he believed they would have.

“If [your company] had lived up to its responsibility as a registered fire installation contractor and did an inspection… the fire alarm system would not be turned off,” Dawes said.

See also: Renovation workers still smoked despite estate management’s complaints to contractor, Tai Po fire inquiry hears

Leung said that might not “absolutely” have been the case.

After being pressed, he admitted that his company bore some responsibility for the fire alarms not working on the day of the blaze.

Shutdown notifications

During the hearing, Dawes also read out parts of a letter issued by the FSD to contractors in January 2021 on revised procedures for handling the shutdown of fire safety installations.

Fire safety contractors are required to notify the FSD of shutdowns of fire safety equipment if work is expected to be carried out overnight or for more than 24 hours continuously, under the rules.

Dawes highlighted the part of the letter that stated the shutdown duration should be capped at 14 days each time, and that shutting down fire safety systems “for a prolonged period should be avoided.”

Leung said he was aware. He also confirmed that the company had already been punished once in late 2021, after it failed to inform the FSD about a suspension of fire safety equipment that lasted more than 24 hours at a building in Kwai Chung.

When asked by Dawes whether the company reviewed its procedures after that, Leung said this was handled by another colleague.

Leung concluded his testimony on Wednesday afternoon. He confirmed that he would be the only person testifying from China Status.

Dawes asked why another director, surnamed Yim, would not be testifying despite providing a comprehensive written submission that was useful to the committee. Leung said he was not sure why.

The hearings will continue on Friday.

A property management firm appointed by the government to take over the owners’ board at the fire-hit Wang Fuk Court has told owners it has no plans to hold a general meeting.

According to an email sent on Sunday by Hop On Management Company, which was appointed to take over the Tai Po estate’s owners’ board in January, a petition for an owners’ meeting launched last month did not satisfy statutory requirements.

No official meeting for owners or residents has been held since the fire broke out in late November.

“Following a detailed review and consultation with legal counsel, we note that… you had gathered owners’ concerns via an online form, but provided no further information,” Hop On said in the email.

“Since the information you provided does not meet the relevant statutory requirements, we will not be arranging an owners’ meeting at this stage,” the estate management firm added, without specifying what information was needed for those requirements to be fulfilled.

Estate management firm Hop On, a subsidiary of real estate giant Chinachem Group, was chosen by the government in January to take over as the “administrator” of the estate while the owners’ corporation board was dissolved, following the massive fire that killed 168 people and displaced thousands.

HKFP has reached out to Hop On for comment.

Legal requirement

Hong Kong’s Building Management Ordinance stipulates that the chair of an estate’s management committee shall convene a general meeting at the written request of no less than 5 per cent of the owners.

The meeting must be convened within 14 days of receiving the request and held within 45 days of receiving it.

More than 420 homeowners at the estate – exceeding the 5 per cent threshold – petitioned for a general meeting with Hop On last month.

“We believe that only through a formal homeowners’ meeting, during which every resident can directly pose questions and receive immediate responses, can confusion be eliminated and consensus reached. The management of the estate will also become more transparent and credible,” the Chinese-language petition letter read.

Echoing earlier comments by Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak, Hop On said it was making preparations for a “briefing session” in early May.

The management firm said that the session would not clash with investigation hearings into the deadly fire or with dates for residents to collect their belongings from the decimated estate.

Mak said on Sunday that the government-appointed management firm would need time to process some 800,000 documents from residents that were previously handled by the owners’ board at the estate.

She also said that Hop On was still dealing with the issue of service contracts signed by the previous owners’ board that had been terminated early.

Renovation workers at the fire-hit Wang Fuk Court kept smoking despite the estate’s management demanding that the project contractor fix the problem, a property officer has told a public inquiry.

Cheng Tsz-ying, a property officer from ISS EastPoint Properties, which managed the housing estate in Tai Po, testified before an independent committee tasked with investigating the blaze on Thursday. She said that her company had no control over renovation workers hired by the project’s main contractor, Prestige Construction & Engineering.

Victor Dawes, the lead committee lawyer, previously said that smoking was “most likely” the cause of the blaze that broke out on November 26 and raged for 43 hours, killing 168 people. Residents also testified that they saw workers smoking and filed multiple complaints, but to no avail.

Minutes from a project meeting in March 2025 showed that ISS and the Wang Fuk Court owners’ committee raised the issue with Prestige and gave it a month to improve, including by designating a smoking area.

But Cheng told the hearing that things “barely improved” afterwards. She said other complaints regarding the accumulation of rubbish and construction waste also did not lead to significant change.

Dawes asked Cheng whether it was fair to describe ISS’s role as a “speaking tube” – that of passing on residents’ complaints to Prestige.

“I can only say we couldn’t control Prestige’s workers. We couldn’t fire them,” Cheng said in Cantonese.

She added that Prestige had vowed to dismiss workers who smoked at work, but admitted that she did not know if the construction firm had enforced the rule.

Cheng, who was assigned to Wang Fuk Court in 2018, was the highest-ranked officer from ISS to testify at the public inquiry. When asked by Dawes, she said she did not know why her direct supervisor, manager Lai Wing-lee, did not choose to testify.

Rooftop water tanks

Earlier this week, an executive and a senior worker from Victory Fire Engineering – a fire safety contractor for Wang Fuk Court- testified that they discovered the estate’s alarm system was disabled before the blaze. They said that, at the time, they requested Cheng to produce the “shutdown notice,” which notifies the Fire Services Department of a deactivation.

Cheng disagreed with their accounts on Thursday, saying that it was only after the fire broke out that they requested her to show the official notice.

In July last year, ISS workers turned off the master switch of Wang Fuk Court’s fire safety system at the request of Prestige, which intended to conduct repairs to rooftop water tanks.

WhatsApp messaging logs from October showed Cheng texted Victory Fire director Chung Kit-man that the water tanks were refilled. On November 21, Cheng sent him 15 photos, which appeared to show full tanks.

However, at least two photos appeared to be taken before November, in August and September, respectively. Dawes said there was no evidence showing that the tanks had been refilled at the time of the fire.

Cheng said she received the photos from her junior colleague, Lok Sin-ying, and forwarded them to Chung. She added she did not know if the tanks were actually filled.

Proxy votes

Cheng also admitted that ISS had no mechanism to verify proxy votes at the Wang Fuk Court owners’ committee meetings.

The inquiry heard on Wednesday that proxy votes were “very common” at owners’ meetings and that they were difficult to verify.

Residents had also lodged at least nine complaints with the Home Affairs Department about suspected fake proxy votes, Dawes said during Thursday’s hearing.

However, ISS did not receive a written complaint on the issue, Cheng said, adding the management office had “barely” discussed how to improve scrutiny of fake votes.

The hearings are set to resume next week after the Easter holiday and Ching Ming Festival.

An electrician who was not licensed to deal with fire safety equipment has told a public hearing investigating the Wang Fuk Court blaze that he unknowingly switched off all the fire alarms months before the tragedy.

Two workers – an electrician and a carpenter – at the estate management company ISS EastPoint testified on Wednesday, the seventh day of the independent committee hearings.

When the fatal blaze broke out at Wang Fuk Court in November, the fire alarms did not go off automatically, delaying residents’ evacuation from a blaze that eventually claimed 168 lives.

Electrician Law Kwok-shui told the independent committee that he and another colleague, carpenter Lee Shing-foo, were ordered by ISS to assist Prestige, the construction firm responsible for the estate’s large-scale renovation, to release water from all water tanks from last May to August.

The procedure was to prepare for water tank maintenance, part of the HK$330 million renovation project at the estate.

The carpenter Lee said on Wednesday that he told Law that only workers with a fire safety licence can handle relevant equipment, including water tanks.

Law – who does not hold such a licence – said he informed ISS EastPoint clerk Lok Sin-ying, who passed the task to him, of this requirement. But he said Lok told him to follow the orders, a claim that Lok denied during her testimony.

She said if workers had any hesitation, they should consult senior management.

In the end, Law drained the water tanks, something he had no experience doing. Before doing so, he turned off master switches as he said he had recalled learning from Victory Fire – a fire safety contractor at the estate – that this was required before releasing water from tanks.

Asked by Senior Counsel Victor Dawes, a lawyer representing the independent committee, if he knew turning off the switches would deactivate fire alarms, he said he did not.

“I would not have done that [if I had known],” he said in Cantonese.

When asked by Dawes why he followed the orders even though he knew he was not qualified to, Law said he was afraid he would be punished if he refused.

Dawes said according to the Fire Services Department, workers do not need to turn off the master switches to drain water tanks. Law said he did not know about this.

Lee said both he and Law had keys to the pump rooms where the master switches are, with Lee opening the doors and staying outside while Law went in to turn off the switches. Prestige workers also went into the rooms.

Lam said that besides him, only Lee and some Prestige staff knew the main switches were off before the fatal fire.

‘I did not know’

ISS EastPoint technical officer Lam Man-yan also testified on Wednesday.

He managed Wang Fuk Court from July 2019 to April 2025, where he was Law and Lee’s supervisor.

Lam left the job after that and rejoined in October 2025. He confirmed that it was during his period of absence that the master switches were turned off.

When questioned by the lawyer Dawes, Law said he was unaware that the fire water tanks were empty and that the master switches were off when he returned in October.

Lam also said he was responsible for the tendering of a switch-changing project for the water tanks in April, but “did not know” why the renovations of the tanks were taking so long.

He said he did not know the contractors of the water tank repair projects either.

Many times when questioned by Judge David Lok, chair of the committee, Lam replied, “I did not know,” prompting Lok to ask what he was “actually responsible for.”

Lam replied that he was in charge of “solving problems” and paperwork related to maintenance projects at Wang Fuk Court.

“It seems that you think I am rubbish. I am not,” Lam said in Cantonese.

The construction consultant knew about government inspections one week before, a property management company employee has told a public inquiry into the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire.

Lok Sin-ying, a clerk of ISS EastPoint Properties, which managed the housing estate in Tai Po, said on Wednesday that she got the impression from meetings hosted by the estate owners’ corporation that the renovation consultant “had frequent exchange” with government staff.

Lok was asked by lawyer Jeffrey Tam, who represents a group of Wang Fuk Court residents, whether she knew how many days before the inspections the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit (ICU) would usually inform Will Power Architects, the consultant overseeing the estate’s renovation.

“In our meetings to follow up on the renovation project, I heard people from Will Power say more than once, ‘Next week, Amanda will come to our estate.’ I believe it was Amanda Lau from the government,” Lok said in Cantonese on the seventh day of a hearing held by an independent committee investigating the tragedy.

Wang Fuk Court was undergoing a large-scale renovation when a fire struck in late November, engulfing seven of its buildings and killing 168 people.

See also: ‘Gov’t should bear greatest responsibility’: Tai Po fire survivors recall futile whistle-blowing attempts

On the first day of the hearing on March 19, Senior Counsel Victor Dawes, lead lawyer for the committee, said that the ICU disclosed advanced details of safety checks to Will Power, which then allegedly alerted Prestige Construction, the main contractor.

He also noted that according to WhatsApp records dated October 27 – a month before the fire – ICU maintenance surveyor Amanda Lau texted Will Power employee Yeung Chi-man to arrange an inspection of scaffolding nets.

Dawes called the ICU’s advance notices “deeply concerning” during his opening statement.

However, Jenkin Suen, a lawyer representing the Hong Kong government, said on March 24 that there was a practical need for the ICU to arrange inspections in advance, as having a representative from the inspected party present would facilitate sampling and allow instant communication.

‘Hard to verify’ signatures

Lok also said on Wednesday that ISS always helped the owners’ corporation handle “authorised letters” from Wang Fuk Court residents, which were used for proxy votes, including when voting for the renovation consultant.

However, she was unable to verify the signatures of the homeowners, she said.

“We can’t verify the signatures. Even if there is just an ‘X,’ I’ll treat it as a signature. But if there is any information missing on the letters, we would call homeowners to ask whether they issued authorised letters,” Lok told the hearing.

Residents in an earlier hearing told the inquiry about the issue of authorised letters and proxy votes, naming Tai Po South district councillor Peggy Wong, a member of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB).

Lok told the independent committee on Wednesday that authorised letters were indeed “very common” in the voting of homeowners at Wang Fuk Court.

“Basically, there would usually be around 100 proxy ballots in every vote, which would account for about half of the ballots. It significantly affected the outcome of the voting,” she said.

Did not ‘flee the scene’

Chung Sui-ha, an ISS building attendant, also testified on Wednesday.

She said she was working at Wang Cheong House, the first building that caught fire, on November 26. At around 2.48pm, a man – who was not a resident of Wang Cheong House – came to tell her that the building had caught fire, she told the inquiry.

“I ran to the first floor and broke the fire alarm, but it did not go off. At the time, there was no smoke, but there was fire by the window – you could hear it crackling,” Chung said as she sobbed.

She said she later went to the second and third floors of Wang Cheong House to break the fire alarms, but neither alarm went off.

“The fire became intense at that time, and there was smoke inside,” Chung said, adding that she returned to the lobby of Wang Cheong House to help residents evacuate and urged people not to go inside the building.

At the end of her testimony, Chung said she wanted to clarify that she did not run away after the fire broke out.

“Some neighbours said that I was the first one to flee the scene, but I want to tell everyone that I did no such thing. I stayed behind to help evacuate the residents. In fact, I would say I was one of the last to leave,” she said.

Separately, Lok also said at the end of her testimony that the online allegations that the property management company staff “disappeared” after the fire broke out were untrue.

Instead, she said, she used a loudspeaker to call on residents to evacuate that day and did not leave them amid the fatal fire.