Enhanced Marking Scheme for Commercial Properties
The Scheme covers all commercial tenancies / licences of shops (excluding Councillor's offices), shopstalls, cooked food stalls and storerooms. Penalty points will be allotted according to the degree of seriousness of misdeeds. Points allotted will remain valid for a period of two years and will be cleared only upon expiry of the validity period. For any objection to the points allotted, tenants may raise the appeal to the Housing Manager concerned through the appeal mechanism. The tenants will be alerted once the accrued points reached 10 or above. Action for tenancy termination by the Housing Authority (HA) will be triggered pursuant to Section 19(1)(b) of the Housing Ordinance when the marks accumulate to 16 or above within two years. The tenant concerned may appeal to the Appeal Panel (Housing) against the termination of tenancy. The ex-commercial tenants will be barred from leasing any our commercial premises for two years upon termination of tenancy under the Scheme.
* Warning System is in place for these misdeeds. Penalty points will only be allotted if the offender ignores one written warning and repeats the same misdeed for the second time and onwards.
# Penalty points will be allotted against partial change / operation on a small scale in addition to the designated trade. Tenancy enforcement action against unauthorised change of trade that totally deviated from the designated trade will be taken in accordance with the terms and conditions of the tenancy agreement.
The scheme is not applicable to markets let to single operators, i.e. Single Operator Markets (SOMs). SOMs have to observe the obligations stipulated in their leasing agreements with the HA.
