 Mr Ng was nearing retirement age and intended to find a quiet place for his golden years. Both he and his wife were keen on gardening and preferred a unit with the use of either a roof top or a garden for plants. The couple inspected a number of units introduced by estate agents and finally left with two choices: one was a ground floor unit sold with a garden; the other was a top floor unit sold with the roof top.
Either of the units had its advantages, and the owners' asking prices were about the same. It was difficult for the couple to make their choice. In the case of the unit with the garden, the area of the unit was 850 sq. ft and that of the garden 950 sq. ft; in the case of the unit with the roof top, the unit and the roof were each 900 sq. ft. Such information were all supplied by the vendors, and to verify them would take only a couple of days. However, Mr and Mrs Ng believed, from what they had seen, that the actual areas of the two properties were not markedly different. After a little discussion they decided to pick the one with the garden. Mr Ng called his bank for a verbal assessment of the value of the unit on the basis of the area supplied by the vendor and was told that it was close to the asking price. Thus they, without waiting for the verification of the area and other information of the property, signed a provisional agreement for sale and purchase with the vendor and paid a deposit.
After concluding the agreement, the couple went to the bank to apply for a mortgage. Little did they expect that the bank, after appointing a surveyor to make measurement on the unit, found that the area of the unit was smaller than that supplied by Mr Ng. The reassessed value was considerably less than the selling price. Mr Ng was therefore unable to obtain an adequate mortgage loan to close the deal. In the end, Mr Ng could not complete and had to forego the deposit. Not only were the couple unsuccessful in the purchase of the unit with the garden, but they also learned subsequently that the area of the unit with the roof-top proved to have come quite close to that supplied by the vendor. Unfortunately, by then someone else had bought that unit.
If Mr and Mrs Ng had obtained proper information on the unit at the beginning, they would not have made the wrong decision, and lost their time and money for nothing.
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