Hong Kong’s planned Building Maintenance Support and Services Council is to prioritise about 1,800 projects in the Urban Renewal Authority’s Smart Tender scheme that have yet to appoint contractors.
About 600 of the projects have not yet had building inspections. The highest priority will be to send inspection consultants to those buildings, Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn said. Of the remaining roughly 1,200, most already have supervision consultants, who are to continue preparing tender documents and inviting bids from contractors.
The proposed service would help participating owners run tenders and evaluate bids, recommending up to three supervision consultants and up to three contractors. Linn said assessments would follow government public-works standards, with unreasonably low bids rejected. The service is intended to start when a building receives a Buildings Department inspection notice and continue after work begins, helping owners check that consultants are doing their jobs properly and handling complaints appropriately.
The service is expected to cost several thousand Hong Kong dollars. The government has reserved HK$200 million for fee relief, and Linn said rateable value would be used to determine eligibility. She estimated that owners of about 80% of residential or mixed residential-commercial buildings needing inspection could qualify for support. Details of the relief are to be announced after further analysis.
The three new pre-qualification lists—for building-inspection consultants, supervision consultants and contractors—received about 650 applications, Linn said, roughly two to three times the number for previous lists. The council is due to be established by the end of 2026 and is expected to hire about 100 professional and administrative staff around mid-2027.
Owners who qualify for and apply for government building-repair subsidies will be required to use the new service. Owners with higher-rateable-value properties who do not qualify for government works subsidies may choose the full service or obtain only the pre-qualified lists.