To evaluate the contribution of owner committee to the quality of housing management in the private residential property in Hong Kong

Abstract

The property management in Hong Kong has emerged in its importance in the past decades. The people’s thought towards property management has changed from the provision of basic services such as watchmen and cleaners to a professional servicing industry. Moreover, as changes in people’s attitude in service consumption and social values, the requirement of the owners for the property management services raised.

Apart from this, the participation of Owner Committee ( OC ) in the property management has become more significant which has been recognized by the residents, the property management practitioners as well as the government. As a result of the rapid population growth, the demand for the housing has increased rapidly too thus, led to the development of multi-storey buildings in large scale. The government policy has encouraged the participation of OC in the management of the building by formation of Owners Incorporations aiming at the promotion of a ‘self-help’ approach for which the OC could manage the building on their own.

The encouragement of the government by enactment of the Building Management Ordinance has strengthened the power of the Incorporated Owners as they have the power to terminate and to appoint managers at their choice. However, we always hear that Owner Committee (OC) will cause a lot of quarrels between OC and the property managers/property management companies and bring a lot of troubles to the property manager/property management company. Sometimes the property managers/ property management companies complained that the requirement of the OC is too high to meet and unreasonable. Moreover, they also complained that OC controls too much on them so that their efficiency of work and their daily performance will be reduced. In addition, it creates a great impact to the property management companies and to the industry of property management. For example, the incidents of termination of property managers/property management companies were increased for the past decade.

Does OC really could not perform their function and to make contribution to improve the quality of private residential property in Hong Kong? In this dissertation, it is to find out whether the OC participation in the management of the property has positive impacts on the management quality of the estates or not. If yes, to what extent or level that OC could help improve the quality of the private residential property in Hong Kong.

After the estate study, it was found that OC participation in the management of the property could help the management company understand their needs and become more accountable. It was also noted that by the questionnaire survey and face to face interviews, the estate selected for the estate study that is a high level of participation of OC, all the comments and results have a higher satisfaction rate and a positive impacts on the management quality of the estate as well as in the whole property management industry.